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THE HISTORY OF MAGIC
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
Brigham Young University
http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmagicinOOIv
James Hyatt.
£lIPHAS LEVI
Frontispiece
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH
TRANSLATION
In several casual references scattered through periodical
literature, in the biographical sketch which preceded my
rendering of Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie and else-
where, as occasion prompted, I have put on record an
opinion that the History of Magic, by Alphonse Louis
Constant, written — like the majority of his works —
under the pseudonym of Eliphas Levi, is the most
arresting, entertaining and brilliant of all studies on the
subject with which I am acquainted. So far back as 1896
I said that it was admirable as a philosophical survey, its
historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, and that there is
nothing in occult literature which can suffer comparison
therewith. Moreover, there is nothing so comprehensive
in the French language, while as regards ourselves it
must be said that — outside records of research on the part
of folk-lore scholarship — we have depended so far on a
history by Joseph Ennemoser, translated from the German
and explaining everything, within the domain included
under the denomination of Magic, by the phenomena of
Animal Magnetism. Other texts than this are available
in that language, but they have not been put into English ;
while none of them has so great an appeal as that which
is here rendered into our tongue. Having certified so
far regarding its titles, it is perhaps desirable to add,
from my own standpoint, that I have not translated the
book merely because it is entertaining and brilliant, or
T^he History of Magic
because it will afford those who are concerned with Magic
in history a serviceable general account. The task has
been undertaken still less in the interests of any who may
have other — that is to say, direct occult — reasons for
acquaintance' with *' its procedure, its rites and its
mysteries." I have no object in providing unwary and
foolish seekers with material of this kind, and it so
happens that the present History does not fulfil the
promise of its sub-title in these respects, or at least to any
extent that they would term practical in their folly.
Through all my later literary life I have sought to make
it plain, as the result of antecedent years spent in occult
research, that the occult sciences — in all their general
understanding — are paths of danger when they are not
paths of simple make-believe and imposture. The im-
portance of Eliphas Levi's account at large of the claims,
and of their story throughout the centuries, arises from
the fact {a) that he is the authoritative exponent-in-chief
of all the alleged sciences ; (^) that it is he who, in a
sense, restored and placed them, under a new and more
attractive vesture, before public notice at the middle
period of the nineteenth century ; {c) that he claimed, as
we shall see, the very fullest knowledge concerning them,
being that of an adept and master ; but {d) that — subject
to one qualification, the worth of which will be mentioned
— it follows from his long examination that Magic, as
understood not in the streets only but in the houses of
research concerning it, has no ground in the truth of
things, and is of the region of delusion only. It is for this
reason that I have translated his History of Magic, as one
who reckons a not too gracious task for something which
leans toward righteousness, at least in the sense of
charity. The world is full at this day of the false claims
vi
Preface to the Rnglish Translation
which arise out of that region, and I have better reasons
than most even of my readers can imagine to undeceive
those who, having been drawn in such directions, may be
still saved frorn deception. It is well therefore that out
of the mouth of a master we can draw the fullest evidence
required for this purpose.
In the present prefatory words I propose to shew,
firstly, the nature of Eliphas Levi's personal claims, so
that there may be no misconception as to what they were
actually, and as to the kind of voice which is speaking ;
secondly, his original statement of the claims, nature
and value of Transcendental Magic ; and, thirdly, his
later evidences on its phenomenal or so-called practical
side, as established by its own history. In this manner
we shall obtain his canon of criticism, and I regard it as
valuable, because — with all his imperfections — he had
better titles of knowledge at his own day than any one,
while it cannot be said that his place has been filled since,
though many workers have risen up in the same field of
inquiry and have specialised in the numerous depart-
ments which he covered generally and super^ficially.
Before entering upon these matters it may be thought
that I should speak at some length of the author's life ;
but the outlines have been given already in an extended
introduction prefixed to a digest of his writings which I
published many years ago under the title of Mysteries of
Magic^ and again, but from another point of view, in
the preface to the Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental
Magic^ already mentioned. The latter will be made
available shortly in a new annotated edition. For the
rest, an authoritative life of Eliphas L^vi has been
promised for years in France, but is still delayed, and in
its absence the salient biographical facts are not numerous.
vii
The History of Magic
In the present place it will be therefore sufficient to
say that Alphonse Louis Constant was born at Paris in
1810, and was the son of a shoemaker, apparently in
very poor circumstances. His precocity in childhood
seemed to give some promise of future ability ; he was
brought to the notice of a priest belonging to his parish,
and this in its turn led to his gratuitous education at
Saint-Sulpice, obviously with a view to the priesthood.
There his superiors must have recognised sufficient traces
of vocation, according to the measures of the particular
place and period, for he proceeded to minor orders and
subsequently became a deacon. He seems, however, to
have conceived strange views on doctrinal subjects, though
no particulars are forthcoming, and, being deficient in
gifts of silence, the displeasure of authority was marked
by various checks, ending finally in his expulsion from
the Seminary. Such is one story at least, but an alter-
native says more simply that he relinquished the sacer-
dotal career in consequence of doubts and scruples.
Thereafter he must, I suppose, have supported himself
by some kind of teaching, and by obscure efforts in
literature. Of these latter the remains are numerous,
though their value has been much exaggerated for book-
selling purposes in France. His adventures with
Alphonse Esquiros over the gospel of the prophet
Ganneau are told in the pages that follow, and are an
interesting biographical fragment which may be left to
speak for itself. He was then approaching the age of
thirty years. I have failed to ascertain at what period he
married Mile. Noemy, a girl of sixteen, who became
afterwards of some repute as a sculptor, but it was a
runaway match and in the end she left him. It is even
said that she succeeded in a nullity suit — not on the usual
viii
Preface to. the English Translation
grounds, for she had borne him two children, who died
in their early years if not during infancy, but on the plea
that she was a minor, while he had taken irrevocable vows.
Saint-Sulpice is, however, a seminary for secular priests
who are not pledged to celibacy, though the rule of the
Latin Church forbids them to enter the married state.
In or about the year 1851 Alphonse Louis Constant
contributed a large volume to the encyclopaedic series of
Abb^ Migne, under the title of Dictionnaire de Lttterature
Chretienne, He is described therein as ancien professeur
au petit Seminaire de Paris^ and it is to be supposed that
his past was unknown at the publishing bureau. The
volume is more memorable on account of his later
writings than important by its own merits. As a critical
work, and indeed as a work of learning, it is naturally
quite negligible, like most productions of the series, while
as a dictionary it is disproportioned and piecemeal ; yet it
is exceedingly readable and not unsuggestive in its views.
There is no need to add that, as the circumstances of
the case required, it is written along rigid lines of
orthodoxy and is consequently no less narrow, no less
illiberal, than the endless volumes of its predecessors
and successors in the same field of industry. The
doubting heart of Saint-Sulpice had become again a
convinced Catholic, or had assumed that mask for the
purpose of a particular literary production. Four years
later, however, the voice of the churchman, speaking
the characteristic language of the Migne Encyclo'paedias,
was succeeded by the voice of the magus. The Doctrine
oj Transcendental Magic appeared in 1855, the Ritual in
1856, and henceforth Alphonse Louis Constant, under
the pseudonym of Eliphas Levi, which has become
almost of European celebrity, was known only as an
ix
The History of Magic
exponent of occult science. It is these works which
more especially embody his claims in respect of the
alleged science and in respect of his own absolute
authority thereon and therein. Various later volumes,
which followed from his pen in somewhat rapid
succession, are very curious when compared with the
Doctrine and Ritual for their apparent submission to
church authority and their parade of sincere orthodoxy.
I have dealt with this question at length in my intro-
duction to the Mysteries of Magic^ and I shall be dispensed
therefore from covering the same ground in the present
place. Such discrepancy notwithstanding, Eliphas L^vi
became, in a private as well as in a public sense, a
teacher of occult science and of Kabalism as its primary
source : it was apparently his means of livelihood. He
was in Paris during the siege which brought the Franco-
German war to its disastrous close, and he died in 1875,
fortified by the last rites of the Catholic Church. He
left behind him a large sheaf of manuscripts, many of
which have been published since, and some await an
editor.
Passing now to the subject-in-chief of this preface,
it is affirmed as follows in the Doctrine and Ritual of
Transcendental Magic : — (i) There is a potent and real
Magic, popular exaggerations of which are actually below
the truth. (2) There is a formidable secret which
constitutes the fatal science of good and evil. (3) It
confers on man powers apparently super-human. (4)
It is the traditional science of the secrets of Nature
which has been transmitted to us from the Magi. (5)
Initiation therein gives empire over souls to the sage
and full capacity for ruling human wills. (6). Arising
apparently from this science, there is one infallible.
Preface to the English Translation
indefectible and truly catholic religion which has
always existed in the world, but it is unadapted for
the multitude. (7) For this reason there has come
into being the exoteric religion of apologue, fable and
wonder-stories, which is all that is possible for the
profane : it has undergone various transformations, and
it is represented at this day by Latin Christianity under
the obedience of Rome. (8) Its veils are valid in their
symbolism, and it may be called valid for the crowd, but
the doctrine of initiates is tantamount to a negation of
any literal truth therein. (9) It is Magic alone which
imparts true science.
Hereof is what may be termed the theoretical,
philosophical or doctrinal part, the dogma of " absolute
science." That which is practical follows, and it deals
with the exercise of a natural power but one superior to
the ordinary forces of Nature. It is to all intents and
purposes comprised in a Grimoire of Magic, and is a
work of ceremonial evocations — whether of elementary
spirits, with the aid of pantacles, talismans and the
other magical instruments and properties ; whether of
spirits belonging ex hypothesi to the planetary sphere ;
whether of the shades or souls of the dead in necro-
mancy. These works are lawful, and their results
apparently veridic, but beyond them is the domain of
Black Magic, which is a realm of delusion and night-
mare, though phenomenal enough in its results. By his
dedications Eliphas Levi happened to be a magus of
light.
It will be observed that all this offers a clear issue,
and — for the rest — the Grimoire of Transcendental
Magic, according to Eliphas Levi, does not differ
generically from the Key of Solomon and its counterparts,
xi
The History of Magic
except in so far as the author has excised here and
enlarged there, in obedience to his own lights. He had
full authority for doing so on the basis of his personal
claims, which may be summarised at this point, (i)
He has discovered " the secret of human omnipotence
and indefinite progress, the key of all symbolism, the
first and final doctrine.** (2) He is alchemist as well
as magician, and he makes public the same secret
as Raymund Lully, Nicholas Flamel and probably
Heinrich Khunrath. They produced true gold, ** nor
did they take away their secret with them.** (3) And
finally : "at an epoch when the sanctuary has been
devastated and has fallen into ruins, because its key has
been thrown over the hedge, to the profit of no one,
I have deemed it my duty to pick up that key, and I
offer it to him who can take it : in his turn he will be
doctor of the nations and liberator of the world,**
It must be said that these claims do not rest on
a mere theory or practice of ceremonial evocations.
There is no question that for Eliphas L^vi his secret
doctrine of occult science is contained in a hypothesis
concerning an universal medium denominated the Astral
Light, which is neither more nor less than the odylic
force of Baron Reichenbach, as the French writer him-
self admits substantially, but it is dilated in his specu-
lation and issues therein greatly transformed as follows,
(i) It is an universal plastic mediator, a common recep-
tacle for vibrations of movement and images of form ;
it may be called the Imagination of Nature. (2) It is
that which God created when He uttered the Fiat Lux,
(3) It is the great medium of occult force, but as such
it is a blind force, which can be used for good or evil,
being especially obedient to the light of grace. (4) It
xii
Preface to the English Translation
is the element of electricity and lightning. (5) The
** four imponderable fluids ** are diverse manifestations
of this one force, which is ** inseparable from the First
Matter " and sets the latter in motion. (6) It is now
resplendent, now igneous, now electric, now magnetic.
(7) It has apparently two modes, which tend to equili-
brium, and to know the middle point of this equilibrium
seems to be the attainment of the Great Work. (8) It is
** ethereal in the infinite, astral in stars and planets,
metallic, specific or mercurial in metals, vegetable in
plants, vital in animals, magnetic or personal in men.'*
(9) It is extracted from animals by absorption and from
men by generation. (10) In Magic it is the glass of
visions, the receptacle of all reflections. The seer has
his visions therein, the diviner divines by its means and
the magus evokes spirits. (11) When the Astral Light
is fixed about a centre by condensation it becomes the
Philosophical Stone of Alchemy, in which form it is
an artificial phosphorus, containing the concentrated
virtues of all generative heat. (12) When condensed
by a triple fire it resolves into oil, and this oil is the
Universal Medicine. It can then only be contained
in glass, this being a non-conductor.
Again, here is a clear issue at its value, and I make
this qualification because the Astral Light is, as I have
said, a speculation, and personally I neither know nor
care whether such a fluid exists, or, in such case,
whether it is applicable to the uses indicated. It is
enough that Eliphas L^vi has made his affirmations
concerning it in unmistakable language.
Let us pass therefore to the Histoire de la Magie^
though I have been borrowing from it already in respect
of the putative universal fluid. Magic therein is still
xiii
The History of Magic
^the science of the ancient Magi ; it is still the exact
,^ and absolute science of Nature and her laws, because
it is the science of equilibrium. Its secret, the secret
^' of occult science, is that of God's omnipotence. It
comprises all that is most certain in philosophy, all
; that is eternal and infallible in religion. It is the
Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art. Its chief memorial
is found in Kabalism, but it derives apparently from
primeval Zoroastrian doctrine, of which Abraham seems
to have been a depositary. This doctrine attained its
perfection in Egypt. Thereafter, on its religious side,
the succession appears to have been : {a) from Egypt
to Moses ; {F) from Moses to Solomon, through certain
custodians of the secret law in Jewry ; {c) from the
Temple at Jerusalem to St. Peter's at Rome, though
the method of transition is obscure — as that which was
affirmed previously is still maintained, namely, that
Rome has lost the Kabalistic Keys. It is naturally
left to our conjecture as to when the Church possessed
them — from Eliphas Levi's point of view, perhaps in
the days of Dionysius, perhaps in those of Synesius,
but not from my standpoint, and so the question remains.
Now, if these things do not differ specifically from
the heads of the previous testimony, on the surface and
in the letter thereof, it is no less certain that there is a
marked distinction alike in general atmosphere and in-
ward spirit. About this all can satisfy themselves who
will compare the two texts, and I need not insist on it
here. What, however, in the Histoire de la Magie^ has
befallen that practical side which, after all the dreamings,
the high and decorative philosophy, the adornments —
now golden, now meretricious — was the evidence, term
and crown of the previous work ? Those who are
xiv
Preface to the English Translation
reading can again check me ; but my answer is this :
i.vhether the subject of the moment is the art of evoking
spirits, whether it is old cases of possession, whether it is
witchcraft or necromancy, whether it is modern pheno-
mena like direct-writing, table-rapping and the other
occurrences of spiritism, as they were known to the
writer and his period, they have one and all fallen under
the ban of unreserved condemnation. It is not that
they are imposture, for Eliphas Levi does not dispute
the facts and derides those who do, but they belong to
the abyss of delusion and all who practise them are
workers of madness and apostles of evil only. The
advent of Christianity has put a decisive period to every
activity of Magic and anathema has been pronounced
thereon. It is from this point of view that Levi takes
the disciple through each century of the subject, some-
times indeed explaining things from the standpoint of a
complete sceptic, sometimes as Joseph Ennemoser might
himself have explained them, but never — no, not once —
like the authorised exponent of practical Magic who has
tried the admirable and terrifying experiments, who
returns to say that they are true and real, which is the
testimony of the Doctrine and Ritual^ if these volumes
can be held to signify anything. Necromancy as a
science of the abyss ; spiritism as the abyss giving up
every form of delusion ; sorcery, witchcraft, as rich
indeed in testimony but to human perversity alone, apart
from intervention of diabolism belonging to the other
world — I testify with my whole heart to the truth of
these accusations, though I do not believe that the un-
seen world is so utterly cut off from the world of things
manifest as Eliphas Levi considered in his own para-
doxical moods. But once more — what has become of
XV
The History of Magic
Magic ? What has happened to the one science which
is coeval with creation itself, to the key of all miracles
and to almost omnipotent adeptship ? They are re-
duced as follows : {a) to that which in its palmary re-
spects is the ** sympathetic and miraculous physics '* of
Mesmer, who is ** grand as Prometheus '* because of
them ; {F) to a general theory of hallucination, when
hallucination has been carried, by self-induced delusion or
otherwise, to its ne plus ultra degree ; and {c) but I men-
tion this under very grave reserves, because — for the life
of me — I do not understand how or why it should
remain — to the physical operations of alchemy, which
are still possible and actual under the conditions set
forth in the speculation concerning the Astral Light. It
is not as such, one would say, a thaumaturgic process,
unless indeed the dream should rule — -as it tends to do
— that fulfilment depends on an electrify^ing power in the
projected will of the adept. In any case, the ethical
transliteration of alchemical symbolism is seemingly a
more important aspect of this subject.
I need not register here that I disbelieve utterly in
Levi's construction of the art of metallic transmutation,
or that I regard his allegorising thereon as a negligible
product when it is compared with the real doctrine of
Hermetic Mysticism ; but this is not the point at issue.
The possessor of the Key of Magic, of the Kabalistic
Keys, thrown aside or lost by the Church, comes for-
ward to tell us that after the advent of Christ ** magical
orthodoxy was transfigured into the orthodoxy of reli-
gion '* ; that " those who dissented could be only illuminati
and sorcerers '* ; that ** the very name of Magic must
be interpreted only according to its evil sense " ; that
we are forbidden by the Church to consult oracles, and
xvi
Preface to the English Translation
that this is ** in its great wisdom ** ; that the '* funda-
mental dogma of transcendental science . . . attained its
plenary realisation in the constitution of the Christian
world/' being the equilibrium between Church and State.
All that is done outside the lawful hierarchy stands
under an act of condemnation ; as to visions, all fools
are visionaries ; to communicate with the hierarchy of
unseen intelligence, we must seek the natural and
mathematical revelations set forth in Tarot cards, but
it cannot be done without danger and crime ; while
mediums, enchanters, fortune-tellers, and casters of
spells ** are generally diseased creatures in whom the
void opens.'* Finally, as regards the philosophical side
of Magic, its great doctrine is equilibrium ; its great
hypothesis is analogy ; and in the moral sense equili-
brium is the concurrence of science and faith.
What has happened to a writer who has thus gone
back on his own most strenuous claims } One explana-
tion is — and long ago I was inclined to it on my own
part — that Eliphas Levi had passed through certain
grades of knowledge in a secret school of the Instituted
Mysteries ; that he was brought to a pause because of
disclosures contained in his earlier books ; and that he
had been set to unsay what he had affirmed therein. I
know now by what quality of school — working under
what titles — this report was fabricated, and that it is the
last with which I am acquainted to be accepted on its
own statements, either respecting itself or any points of
fact. An alternative is that Eliphas Levi had spoken
originally as a Magus might be supposed to speak when
trafficking in his particular wares, which is something
like a quack doctor describing his nostrums to a populace
in the market-place, and that his later writings represent
xvii b
The History of Magic
a process of retrenchment as to the most florid side of
his claims. This notion is apart from all likelihood,
because it offers no reason for the specific change in
policy, while — if it be worth while to say so — I do not
regard L6vi as comparable to a quack doctor. I think
that he had been a student of occult literature and
history for a considerable period, in a very particular
sense ; that he believed himself to have discovered a key
to all the alleged phenomena ; that he wrote the Doctrine
and Ritual \n a mood of enthusiasm consequent thereupon;
that between the appearance of these volumes and that of
the Histoire de la Magie he had reconsidered the question
of the phenomena, and had come to the conclusion that so
far from being veridic in their nature they were projected
hallucinations variously differentiated and in successively
aggravated grades ; but that he still regarded his sup-
posed universal fluid as a great provisional hypothesis
respecting thaumaturgic facts, and that he still held to
his general philosophy of the subject, being the persis-
tence of a secret tradition from remote times and surviv-
ing at the present day (i) in the tenets of Kabalism and
(2) in the pictorial symbols of the Tarot.
It is no part of my province in the present connection
to debate his views either on the fact of a secret tradition
or on the alleged modes of its perpetuation : my stand-
point is known otherwise and has been expressed fully
elsewhere. But in the explanation just given I feel that
I have saved the sincerity of one who has many titles to
consideration, who is still respected by many, and for whom
my own discriminating sympathy has been expressed
frequently in no uncertain way : I have saved it so far
at least as can be expected. One does not anticipate that
a Frenchman, an occultist and a magus is going to
xviii
Preface to the English 'Translation
retract distinctly under the eye of his disciples, more
especially when he has testified so much. I feel further
that I have justified the fact of the present translation
of a work which is memorable in several respects, but
chiefly as the history of a magic which is not Magic, as
a testimony which destroys indeed the whole imputed
basis of its subject. It does not follow that Levi's
explanation of physical phenomena, especially of the
modern kind, is always or generally correct ; but some
of it is workable in its way, and my purpose is more than
served if those who are drawn toward the science of the
mystics may be led hereby to take warning as to some of
the dangers and false-seemings which fringe that science.
A few things remain to be said. Readers of his His-
tory must be prepared for manifold inaccuracies, which
are to be expected in a writer like Eliphas Levi. Those
who know anything of Egypt — the antiquities of its reli-
gion and literature — will have a bad experience with the
chapter on Hermetic Magic ; those who know eastern
religion on its deeper side will regard the discourse on
Magic in India as title-deeds of all incompetence ; while
in respect of later Jewish theosophy I have had occa-
sion in certain annotations to indicate that Levi had no
extensive knowledge of those Kabalistic texts on the
importance of which he dwells so much and about which
he claims to speak with full understanding. He pre-
sents, however, some of their lesser aspects.
As regards the religion of his childhood, I feel certainly
that it appealed to him strongly through all his life,
and in the revulsion which seems to have followed the
Doctrine and Ritual he was drawn back towards it, but
rather as to a great hierarchic system and a great sequence
of holy pageants, of living symbolism. Respecting the
xix
The History of Magic
root-matter of its teachings, probably he deceived him-
self better than he fooled his readers. In a multitude of
statements and in the spirit of the text throughout, it
is certain that the Histoire de la Magie offers ** negation
of dogma *' on its absolute side. We obtain a continual
insight into free sub-surface opinions, ill-concealed under
external conformity to the Church, and we get also useful
side-lights on the vanity of the author^s sham submissions.
In this manner, we know exactly what quality of senti-
ment led him to lay all his writings at the foot of the
seat of Peter, for Peter to decide thereon. It is needless
to add that his constructions of doctrine throughout
are of the last kind that would be commended to the
custodians of doctrine. At the same time there is very
little doubt that he believed genuinely in the necessity
of a hierarchic teaching ; that, in his view, it reposed from
a very early period in certain sanctuaries of initiation ;
that the existence of these is intimated in the records
of the Mosaic dispensation ; that they were depositaries
of science rather than revelation; that Kabalistic literature
is one of their witnesses ; but that the sanctuaries were
everywhere in the world, Egypt and Greece included.
Of all these the Church of Christ is the heir, and though
it may have lost the keys of knowledge, though it
mistakes everywhere the sign for the thing signified, it
is — from his standpoint — entitled to our respect as a
witness and at least to qualified obedience.
I think that Eliphas Levi has said true things and
even great things on the distinctions and analogies
between science and faith, but the latter he understood
as aspiration, not as experience. A long essay on the
mystics, which is perhaps his most important contribution
to the Dictionnaire de Litterature Chretienne^ indicates that
Preface to the English Translation
he was thinly acquainted with the mind of Suso, St. John
of the Cross, St. Teresa and St. Francis of Sales. Accord-
ingly he has a word here and there on the interior life
and its secrets, but of that which remains for the elect
in the heights of sanctity he had no consciousness
whatever. For him the records of such experience are
literature and mystic poetry ; and as he is far from the
term herein, so is he remote also when he discourses of
false mystics, meaning Gnostic sects, Albigensian sects,
tlluminati so-called and members of secret heretical
societies representing reformed doctrine. As the religion
of the mystics is my whole concern in literature, let me
add that the true idea of religion is not constituted by
** universal suffrage " (see text, p. 517), but by the agree-
ment of those who have attained in the Divine experience
that which is understood by attainment.
In conclusion, after we have set aside, on the warrants
of this History, the phenomenal side of Magic, that
which may be held to remain in the mind of the author
is Transcendental Magic — referred to when I spoke of
a qualification earlier in these remarks ; but by this is to
be understood so much of the old philosophical systems
as had passed within his consciousness and had been inter-
preted therein. It will be unacceptable to most readers
at this day, but it has curious aspects of interest and may
be left to stand at its value.
A. E. WAITE.
XXI
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CONTENTS
PAGB
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION v
INTRODUCTION
False definition of Magic — It is not to be defined at hazard — Explanation
of the Blazing Star — Existence of the absolute — Absolute nature of
magical science — Errors of Dupuis — Profanation of the science — Pre-
diction of Count Joseph de Maistre — Extent and import of the science
— The Divine Justice — Power of the adept — The devil and science
— Existence of demons — False idea of the devil — Conception of the
Manicheans — Crimes of sorcerers — The Astral Light — The so-called
Imagination of Nature — Of what is to be understood hereby — The
effects hereof — Definition of magnetism — Agreement between reason
and faith — Jachin and Boaz — Principle of the hierarchy — Religion of
Kabalists — Images of God — Theory of the light — Mysteries of sexual
love — Antagonism of forces — The mythical Pope Joan — The Kabalah
as an explanation and reconciliation of all — Why the Church condemns
Magic — Dogmatic Magic an explanation of the philosophy of history —
Culpable curiosity regarding Magic — Plan of the present work — The
author's submission to the established order i
BOOK I
THE DERIVATIONS OF MAGIC
CHAPTER I
FABULOUS SOURCES
The Book of Enoch concerning the Fall of the Angels-^Meaning of the
Legend — ^The Book of the Penitence of Adam — The Personality of
Enoch — The Apocalypse of St. Methodius — Children of Seth and of
Cain — Rationale of occultism — Error of Rousseau — Traditions of Jewry
— The glory of Christianity — ThtSepher Yetzirahy Zo^tarand Apoialypse
— Opening of the Zohar 3^
CHAPTER II
MAGIC OF THE MAGI
The true and false Zoroaster — Doctrines of the true Zoroaster — Transcen-
dental fire-philosophy — Electrical secrets of Numa — A transcript from
xxiii
The History of Magic
PAGE
Zoroaster on demons and sacrifices — Important revelations on mag-
netism— Initiation in Assyria — Wonders performed by the Assyrians —
Du Potet in accord with Zoroaster — Danger incurred by the unwary —
Power of man over animals — Downfall of the priesthood in Assyria
— Magical death of Sardanapalus '53
CHAPTER III
MAGIC IN INDIA
The Indians as descendants of Cain — India the mother of idolatry — Doctrine
of the Gymnosophists — Indian origin of Gnosticism — Some wise fables
of India — Black Magic of the Oupnekhat — Citation from J. M. Ragon
— Indian Grand Secrets — The English and Indian insurrections . , 64
CHAPTER IV
HERMETIC MAGIC
The Emerald Table — Other writings of Hermes — Magical interpretation of
the geography of Ancient Egypt — Ministry of Joseph — Sacred alphabet
— The Isiac Tablet of Cardinal Bembo — The Tarot explained by the
SepherYeizirah — The Tarot of Charles VII — Magical science of Moses 73
CHAPTER V
MAGIC IN GREECE
Fable of the Golden Fleece — Medea and Jason — The five magical epics —
Aeschylus a profaner of the Mysteries — The Orpheus of legend — Orphic
Mysteries — Goetia — The sorcerers of Thessaly — Medea and Circe 82
CHAPTER VI
MATHEMATICAL MAGIC OF PYTHAGORAS
Pythagoras an heir of the traditions of Numa — Identity of Pythagoras — His
doctrine concerning God — A fine utterance against anarchy — Golden
Verses — Symbols of Pythagoras — His chastity — His divination — Ilis
explanation of miracles — Secret of the interpretation of dreams — The
belief of Pythagoras 92
CHAPTER VII
THE HOLY KABALAH
Origin of the Kabalah — The horror of idolatry in Kabalism — Kabalistic
definition of God— Principles of the Kabalah — The Divine Names —
Four forms of Tctragrammaton — The word which accomplishes all
transmutations — The Keys of Solomon — The chain of spirits — Whether
human spirits return — The world of spirits according to the Zohar — Of
spirits which manifest — Fluidic larvae — The Great Magical Agent —
Obscure origin of larv?e loi
xxiv
Contents
BOOK II
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMAS
CHAPTER I
PRIMITIVE SYMBOLISM OF HISTORY
PAGE
Allegory of the Earthly Paradise — The Edenic Pantacle — The Cherub —
Folly of a great mind — Mysteries of Genesis — Children of Cain —
Magical secrets of the Tower of Babel — Belphegor — The mediaeval
Sabbath — Decadence of the hierarchy — Philosophy of chance — Doctrine
of Plato — An oracle of Apollo — Rationalism of Aristotle — The Cubic
Stone — Summary of Neoplatonism 115
CHAPTER II
MYSTICISM
Inviolability of magical science— Profane and mystic schools — The Bac-
chantes— Materialistic reformers and anarchic mystics — Imbecile
visionaries — Their horror of sages — Tolerance of the true Church —
False miracles — Rites of Black Magic — Barbarous words and unknown
signs — Cause of visions — A theory of hallucinations .... 125
CHAPTER III
INITIATIONS AND ORDEALS
The Great Work — The four aspects of the Sphinx and the Shield of Achilles
— Allegories of Hercules and CEdipus — The Secret Doctrine of Plato —
Of Plato as Kabalist — Difference between Plato and St. John — Platonic •
theosophy — Fatal experiences — Homoepathy practised by the Greeks —
The cavern of Trophonius — Science of Egyptian priests — Lactantius
and the antipodes—The Greek hell — Ministry of suffering — The Table
of Cebes and the poem of Dante — Doctrines of the Phaedron— The
burial of the dead — Necromancy 133
CHAPTER IV
THE MAGIC OF PUBLIC WORSHIP
Magnificence of the true Cultus — Orthodox traditions — Dissent of the
profane — Their calumnies against initiates — An allegory concerning
Bacchus — Tyresias and Calchas — The priesthood according to Homer
— Oracles of sibyls — Origin of geomancy and cartomancy . . . 145
XXV
;
;
The History of Magic
CHAPTER V
MYSTERIES OF VIRGINITY
PAGS
Of HcUcnism at Rome — Institution of Vestals — Traditional virtue of virgin
blood — Symbolism of Sacred Fire — Religious aspect of the history of
Lucretia — Honour among Roman women — Mysteries of the Bona Dea
— Numa as a hierophant — Ingenious notions of Voltaire on divination
— Prophetic instinct of the masses — Erroneous opinions of Fontenelle
and Kircher on oracles — Religious Calendar of Numa .... 153
CHAPTER VI
SUPERSTITIONS
Their origin and persistence — Beautiful thought of the Roman pontiff, St.
Gregory — Observation of numbers and of days — Abstinence of the
magi — Opinions of Porphyry — Greek and Roman superstitions —
Mythological data on the secret properties of animals — A passage from
Euripides — Reasons of Pythagorean abstinence — Singular excerpt from
Homer — Presages, dreams, enchantments and fascinations — Magical
whirlpools — Modern phenomena — Olympius and Plotinus . . .158
CHAPTER VII
MAGICAL MONUMENTS
The Seven Wonders of the world and the seven magical planets — The
Pyramids — Thebes and its seven gates — The pantacle of the sun — The
pantacle of the moon — The pantacle of the conjugal Venus — The pant-
acles of Mercury, Jupiter and Mars — The Temple of Solomon —
Philosophical summary of ancient wisdom 166
BOOK III
DIVINE SYNTHESIS AND REALISATION OF MAGIA
BY THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION
CHAPTER I
CHRIST ACCUSED OF MAGIC BY THE JEWS
The beginning of the Gospel according to St. John and its profound meaning
— Ezekiel a Kabalist — Special character of Christianity — Accusations
of the Jews against the Saviour — The Sepher Toldos Jesku — A beauti-
ful legend from the apocryphal gospels — The Johannites — Burning of
magical books at Ephesus — Cessation of oracles — The great Pan is
dead — Transfiguration of natural prodigy into miract^-AQd of divination
into prophecy . 171
XXV i
Contents
CHAPTER II
THE WITNESS OF MAGIC TO CHRISTIANITY
Absolute existence of religion — Essential distinction between science and
faith — Puerile objections — Christianity proved by charity — Condem-
nation of Magic by the Christian priesthood — ^Simon the Magician —
His history — His doctrine — His conference witji SS. Peter and Paul —
His downfall — His sect continued by Menand^r . . . . .176
CHAPTER III
THE DEVIL
The question considered in the light of faith and science — Satan and Lucifer
—Wisdom of the Church— The devil according to the initiates of occult
science — Of possessions in the gospel — Opinions of Torreblanca — Astral
perversities — The Sabbatic goat— The false Lucifer . , . 187
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST PAGANS
The eternal miracle of God — Civilising influence of Christianity— Apollonius
of Tyana — His all^orical legend — ^Julian the apostate — His evocations
— ^Jamblichus and Maximus of Tyre— Birth of Secret Societies for the
forbidden practices of Magic . . 193
CHAPTER V
LEGENDS
The legend of St. Cyprian and St. Justin — Magical prayer of St. Cyprian —
The Golden Legend — Apuleius and the Golden Ass— The fable of
Psyche — Curious subtlety of St. Augustine — Philosophy of the Fathers
of the Church 200
CHAPTER VI
SOME KABALISTIC PAINTINGS AND SACRED EMBLEMS
Gnosticism and the primitive Church — Emblems of the catacombs — True
and false Gnostics — Profanation of the Gnosis — Impure and sacrilegious
Rites— Eucharistic sacrilege— The Arch-heretic Marcos — Women and
the priesthood — Montanus and his female prophets — Tertullian — ^The
dualism of Manes— Danger of evocations — Divs^ations of Kal>alism —
Loss of the Kabalistic Keys ; . . . 208
xxvii
The History of Magic
CHAPTER VII
PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL
PACE
Ammonius Saccas--I'iotinus -Porphyry — Hypatia — Incautious admissions
of Synesius Writings ot this initiate — More especiall} his tr^ct on
Dreams — The oommeniaiy of Jeioiue Cp.rdan thereon— Att(ibu(K>n of
the works of St Dionysius to SyueMos -Tht-ir ortliorloxy and their
vahie ......... . . 215
BOOK IV
MAGIC AND CIVILISATION
CHAPTER I
MAGIC AMONG BARBARIANS
Rome conquered by the Cross — History of Philirmium and Machates — The
Bride of Corinth — Philosophical considerations thereon — Germanic and
Druidic theology— College of the Druids at Aulun — Druidic transmi-
gration of souls — Some Druidic practices 223
CHAPTER IT
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
Female influence in early France — Velleda slandered by Chateaubriand —
Berthe au grand pied — The fairy Melusine — Saint Clotilda — The
sorceress Fredegonde — The story of Klodswinthe — Fredegonde and
Clovis — Further concerning her history , . - . . . . 232
CHAPTER III
THE SALIC LAWS AGAINST SORCERER^
Laws attributed to Pharamond — Explanation of a Talmudic passu^e by
Rabbi Jechiel — Belief in the immortality of the soul among the Jews
— An ecclesiastical council on sorcery — The rise of Mohammed — The
religious histoiy of Charles Martel — The Reign of Pepin the Short —
The Ka^.ilist Zedekias — His fables concerning elementary spirits — An
epidemic o- visions . ....... 238
CHAPTER IV
LEGENDS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE
Charlemagne a prince of faerie — Charlemagne and Roland — The enchanted
sword and magic horn — The Enchiridion of Leo III — The tradition
therein — The pantacles — The Sabbath — The Free Judges — Their
xxviii
Contents
fAGB
foundation and purpose — Power of this Tribunal — The fate of Frederick
of Brunswick — Code of the Free Judges — Laws of Charlemagne —
Knight errantry — The cultus of the Blessed Virgin .... 246
CHAPTER V
MAGICIANS
The pope and empire — The penalty of excommunication — Further con-
cerning Rabbi Jechiel — The automaton of Albertus Magnus — Albertus
-^ and St. Thomas Aquinas — The legend of the automaton interpreted —
Scholasticism and Aristotelian philosophy — The philosophical stone
and the quintessence 256
CHAPTER VI
SOME FAMOUS PROSECUTIONS
The great religious orders and their power — The Knights Templar — Their
origin — Their secret design — The Christian sect of Johannites — Their
profanation of the history of Christ — Pontiffs of the Johannite sect —
The Johannites and the Templars — Further concerning Templar secret
doctrine — Development of the chivalry — Their projects discovered —
Their suppression — The case of Joan of Arc — The history of Gilles de
Laval . 264
CHAPTER VII
SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO THE DEVIL
Apparitions of Satan — Possessions —A philosophy of superstitions— The
crime of Black Magic — Pathological states — The soul of the world —
Modern phenomena — Fourier and M. de Mirville — Baron de Gulden-
stubb^ 281
BOOK V
THE ADEPTS AND THE PRIESTHOOD
CHAPTER I
PRIESTS AND POPES ACCUSED OF MAGIC
Inviolable sanctity of the priesthood — Accusations of false adepts — Ground-
less charges against Pope Sylvester II — Scandalous story of Polonus
reproduced by Platina — The legend of Pope Joan — Its derivation from
ancient Tarot cards representing Isis crowned with a tiara — Further
concerning Sylvester II — Opinion of Gabriel Naude — The Grimoire
attributed to Pope Honorius III — The anti-pope Ilonorius II as its
possible author — An excursus on the content and character of the
work 291
xxix
The History of Magic
CHAPTER II
APPEARANCE OF THE BOHEMIAN NOMADS
PAGB
Their entrance into Europe early in the fifteenth century — Their name of
Bohemians or Egyptians — An account of their encampment near Paris,
drawn from an ancient chronicle — A citation from George Borrow —
Researches of M. Vaillant — ^The Gipsies and the Tarot — A conclusion
on this subject — Communistic Experiment in 1840 .... 306
CHAPTER III
LEGEND AND HISTORY OF RAYMUND LULLY
Story of the Doctor Jlhiminatus on its mythical side — Raymond LuUy and
the Lady Ambrosia — His immortality and liberation therefrom — The
historical personage — Lully as an alchemist — The Rose Nobles — His
philosophical testament— Colleges for the study of languages founded
by his efforts— The Great Art— He appears at the Council of Vienna —
Lully a disciple of the Kabalists— But the tradition' in his hands had
become Christian 3'9
CHAPTER IV
ON CERTAIN ALCHEMISTS
Nicholas Flamel and the book of Abraham the Jew — Mysterious figures of
the work — A tradition concerning Flamel — Bernard Trevisan — Basil
Valentine — ^John Trithemius — Cornelius Agrippa — The pantacle of
Trithemius — William Postel — Illustrations of his teaching — The story
of Mother Jeanne — The renewal of Postel — An opinion of Father
Desbillons — Paracelsus — His doctrines of occult medicine — Mysteries
of blood— Narrative of Tavemier — The Philosophia sagax of Paracelsus 331
CHAPTER V
SOME FAMOUS SORCERERS AND MAGICIANS
The Divine Comedy of Dante and its Kabalistic analysis — The Romance of
the Rose — Luther and anarchical theology — His disputes with the devil
— His sacrilegious marriage — Sorcerers during the ceign Of Hewy HI —
Visions of Jacques Clement — Mystic symbolism of the rose — Union of the
rose and the cross — The Rosf crucians — 'Henry Khunrath — His Ampki'
theatrmn Sapieniice y^terncB — Its pantacles — Oswaldus Crollius —
Alchemists of the early seventeenth century — A Rosicrucian manifesto 345
CHAPTER VI
SOME MAGICAL PROSECUTIONS
Introductory remarks — Real crime of sorcerers — Some deplorable condem-
nations— ^The case of Louis Gaufridi — The case of Urbain Grandier —
XXX
Contents
HAbE
The nuns of Louvier and some other processes — Interpretation of certain
phenomena — Story of an apparition 360
CHAPTER VII
THE MAGICAL ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY
Its appearance in Europe — Its allegorical and real end — The Legend
of Hiram — Its meaning — Mission of the Rites of Masonry — Its
profanatioiis • • 3^^
BOOK VI
MAGIC AND THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER I
REMARKABLE AUTHORS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Important discoveries in China — The Y-Kim of Fo-hi — Legend of its origin
— Connection with the Zohar — An example of absolute philosophy —
Opinion of Leibnitz — Emmanuel Swedenborg — His system and its
Kabalistic derivation — The discovery of Mesmer — Its theory and its
great importance — A comparison between Voltaire and Mesmer . . 391
CHAPTER II
THAUMATURGIC PERSONALITIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
The Comte de Saint-Germain — Unpublished particulars of his life — ^The
report of Madame de Genlis — The Order of Saint Jakin — ^A pretended
initiation — Further concerning the Rosicrucians — An appreciation of
Saint-Germain — His alleged identity with the mysterious Althotas —
The alchemist Lascaris — Count Cagliostro — An agent of the Templars
— A successor of Mesmer — Explanation of his seal and Kabalistic name
— His secret of physical regeneration — His trial by the Inquisition —
He is said to be still alive 400
CHAPTER III
PROPHECIES OF CAZOTTE
The school of Martinists — The supper of Cazotte — The romance of Le Diahle
Amoureux — Its interpretation according to the Kabalah — Lilith and
Nehamah — Initiation of Cazbtte — Thu Mystic Mountain — Cazotte and
the Revolutionary Tribunal 416
xxxi
The History of Magic
CHAPTER IV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
PAGE
The reveries of Rousseau and their fatal consequences — The tomb of Jacques
de Molay — The Lodge in Rue Platriere — The doom of Louis XVI — A
genius of massacre — Mademoiselle de Sombreuil — Madame Elizabeth —
The Church of the Jacobins — Vengeance of the Templars — Further
concerning the Apocalypse of St. Methodius — The prophecies of Abbe
Joachim 422
CHAPTER V
PHENOMENA OF MEDIOMANIA
An obscure sectof Johannite mystics — Visions of Loiseaut — Dom Gerle and
Catherine Theot — A visit from Robespierre — The prophecy of Catherine
— Her fate and that of Dom Gerle — The Saviours of Louis XVH —
Martin de Gallardon — Eugene Vintras — Naiindorff .... 427
CHAPTER VI
THE GERMAN ILLUMINATI
The adept Steinert — An account of Eckartshausen — Schroepfer and Lavater
— The spirit Gablidone — His prophecies — Ststbs and Napoleon — Carl
Sand and Kotzebue — The Mopses and their mysteries — The magical
drama of Faust 435
CHAPTER VII
EMPIRE AND RESTORATION
Predictions relative to Napoleon — Mademoiselle Lenormand — Etteilla and
cartomancy — Madame Bouche and the Czar AlexanVier — Madame de
Krudener — Further concerning the Saviours of Louis XVII — Visions
of Martin de Gallardon 443
BOOK VII
MAGIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER I
MAGNETIC MYSTICS AND MATERIALISTS
Infectious follies of Fourier — The dogma of hell — An evocation in the
Church of Noire Dame — Lesser prophets and divinities — Ganneau,
Auguste Comte and Wronski— Sale of the Absolute . , , , 453
xxxii
Contents
CHAPTER II
HALLUCINATIONS
PAGE
Yet again concerning the Saviours of Louis XVII — Singular hallucination
of Eugene V^intras — Plis prophecies and pretended miracles — The sect
of Vintras — Its condemnation by Gregory XVI — Pontificate of Vintras
—His dreams and visions . .461
CHAPTER III
MESMERISTS AND SOMNAMBULISTS
The Church and the abuse of somnambulism — Baron Du Potet — His secret
work on Magic — Table-turning — A table burnt for heresy — Experi-
ences of Victor Hennequin — A magical melodrama . . . .471
CHAPTER IV
THE FANTASTIC SIDE OF MAGICAL LITERATURE
Alphonse Esquiros invents a romanesque Magic — Henri Delaage continues
the work — His gifts of enchantment -His orthodoxy — Le Comte
d'Ourches — Baron de Guldenstubbe — His miraculous writings — Their
explanation — Exhumation of a fakir — History of a vampire — The
cartomancist Edmond .......... 477
CHAPTER V
SOME PRIVATE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WRITER
The author is presented by the magician Alphonse Esquiros to the divinity
Ganneau — Eccentric doctrines of the Mapah — Another Louis XVII —
A fatal result of this visit — Secret cause of the Revolution of 1848 —
The wife of Ganneau 495
CHAPTER VI
THE OCCULT SCIENCES
A synthesis in summary — Recapitulation of principles — The search after
the absolute ............ 500
CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The enigma of the sphinx and its solution — Paradoxical questions and their
answers — Knowledge and faith — The communion of faith — The
xxxiii c
I
The History of Magic
PAGE
temporal power of the pope — The science of moral equilibrium — Con-
sequences of its recognition — A citation from the Blessed Vincent de
Lerins — Another from Comte Joseph de Maistre — An axiom of St.
Thomas Aquinas — The liberation of Magic — Purpose of this work . 503
APPENDIX 526
INDEX 529
XXXIV
PLATE
ILLUSTRATIONS
I. Portrait of 6liphas L6vi in the Robe of a Magus . Frontispiece
PACING
I' AGE
II. Portrait of ^liphas Levi taken after death .... xxii
in. The Pentagram of the Absolute 2
IV. The Great Symbol of Solomon, reconstructed according to
the Zohar . .20
V. The Magical Head of the Zohar 40
VI. The Great Kabalistic Symbol of the Zohar . ... 50
VII. The Mystery of Universal Equilibrium, according to Indian
and Japanese Mythology, together with the Pantomorphic
lynx, or Twenty-First Primitive Egyptian Tarot Key . 64
VIII. The Bembine Tablet 78
IX. Pantacle of Kabalistic Letters, bejng the Key of the Tarot,
Sepher Yetzirah and the Zohar 102
X. The Seal of Cagliostro, Seal of the Samian Juno, Apocalyptic
Seal, Twelve Seals of the Cubic Stone in Masonry, with
the Twenty-First Tarot Key in the centre of all . .120
XI. Egyptian Symbols of Typhon, illustrating Goetia and^
Necromancy. Typhon is depicted performing the renewal
of the empire of darkness. From the Temple of Herpioutis.
The smaller figures are from the Zodiac of Esne and the
top is a ^oj r^//^ in the same temple . . ' . . . 128
XII. The Seven Wonders of the World 166
XIII. A Public Disputation between St. Peter and St. Paul on the
one side and Simon the Magician on the other. Ascent
and fall of Simon. From an engraving of the fifteenth
century - . . . 184
XIV. Hermetic Magic. Reproduced from an ancient Manuscript 224
XXXV
Illustrations
FACING
PLATB PAGE
XV. The Philosophical Cross, or plan of the Third Temple, as
prophesied by Ezekiel and planned in the building
scheme of the Knights Templar 264
XVI. Two occult Seals are shewn in the left compartment ; the
first represents the Great Work ; the second is that of
Black Magic. Both are from the Gri7noire of Honorius.
The right hand compartment contains primitive Egyptian
Tarots — the 2 of Cups at the top and beneath this,
specimens of the Ace of Cups 298
XVII. The Seven Planets and their Genii, according to the Magic
of Paracelsus . . 340
XVIII. The Great Hermetic Arcanum, according to Basil Valen-
tine 394
XIX. A general plan of Kabalistic Doctrine .... 454
XX. Apocalyptic Key: the Seven Seals of St. John . . . 502
XXXVl
THE HISTORY OF MAGIC
INTRODUCTION
Magic has been confounded too long with the jugglery
of mountebanks, the hallucinations of disordered minds
and the crimes of certain unusual malefactors. There
are otherwise many who would promptly explain Magic
as the art of producing effects in the absence of causes ;
and on the strength of such a definition it will be said
by ordinary people — with the good sense which charac-
terises the ordinary, in the midst of much injustice —
that Magic is an absurdity. But it can have no analogy
in fact with the descriptions of those who know nothing
of the subject ; furthermore, it is not to be represented as
this or that by any person whomsoever : it is that which
it is, drawing from itself only, even as mathematics do,
for it is the exact and absolute science of Nature and
her laws.
Magic is the science of the ancient magi ; and the
Christian religion, which silenced the counterfeit oracles
and put a stop to the illusions of false gods, does, this
notwithstanding, revere those mystic kings who came from
the East, led by a star, to adore the Saviour of the world
in His cradle. They are elevated by tradition to the
rank of kings, because magical initiation constitutes a
true royalty ; because also the great art of the magi is
characterised by all adepts as the Royal Art, as the
Holy Kingdom — Sanctum Regnum. The star which
conducted the pilgrims is the same Burning Star which
is met with in all initiations. For alchemists it is the
The History of Magic
sign of the quintessence, for magicians it is the Great
Arcanum, for Kabalists the sacred pentagram. Our
design is to prove that the study of this pentagram did
itself lead the magi to a knowledge of that New Name
which was to be exalted above all names and to bend
the knees of all beings who were capable of adoration.
Magic, therefore, combines in a single science that which
is most certain in philosophy, which is eternal and infal-
lible in religion. It reconciles perfectly and incontestably
those two terms, so opposed on the first view — faith and
reason, science and belief, authority and liberty. It
furnishes the human mind with an instrument of philo-
sophical and religious certitude as exact as mathematics,
and even accounting for the infallibility of mathematics
themselves.
An Absolute exists therefore in the realms of under-
standing and faith. The lights of human intelligence
have not been left by the Supreme Reason to waver at
hazard. There is an incontestable truth ; there is an
infallible method of knowing that truth ; while those
who attain this knowledge, and adopt it as a rule of life,
can endow their will with a sovereign power which can
make them masters of all inferior things, all wandering
spirits, or, in other words, arbiters and kings of the
world.
If such be the case, how comes it that so exalted
a science is still unrecognised } How is it possible to
assume that so bright a sun is hidden in a sky so dark }
The transcendental science has been known always, but
only to the flowers of intelligence, who have understood
the necessity of silence and patience. Should a skilful
surgeon open at midnight the eyes of a man born blind,
it would still be impossible to make him realise the
nature or existence of daylight till morning came. Science
has its nights and its mornings, because the life which it
communicates to the world of mind is characterised by
regular modes of motion and progressive phases. It is
2
THE PENTAGRAM OF THE ABSOLUTE
Facing p. 2
Introduction
the same with truths as it is with radiations of light.
Nothing which is hidden is lost, but at the same time
nothing that is found is absolutely new. The seal of
eternity is affixed by God to that science which is the
reflection of His glory.
The transcendental science, the absolute science is
assuredly Magic, though the affirmation may seem utterly
paradoxical to those who have never questioned the
infallibility of Voltaire — that marvellous smatterer who
thought that he knew so much because he never missed
an opportunity for laughter instead of learning. Magic
was the science of Abraham and Orpheus, of Confucius
and Zoroaster, and it was magical doctrines which were
graven on tables of stone by Enoch and by Trismegistus.
Moses purified and re-veiled them — this being the sense
of the word reveal. The new disguise which he gave
them was that of the Holy Kabalah — that exclusive
heritage of Israel and inviolable secret of its priests.^
The mysteries of Eleusis and of Thebes preserved
among the Gentiles some of its symbols, but in a debased
form, and the mystic key was lost amidst the apparatus
of an ever-increasing superstition. Jerusalem, murderer
of its prophets and prostituted over and over again to
false Assyrian and Babylonian gods, ended by losing in
its turn the Sacred Word, when a Saviour, declared to
the magi by the holy star of initiation, came to rend the
threadbare veil of the old temple, to endow the Church
with a new network of legends and symbols — ever con-
cealing from the profane and always preserving for the
elect that truth which is the same for ever.
^ The word sigTiifies reception, and in Rabbinical Hebrew it denotes
doctrine so communicated — that is to say, by a tradition handed down
or received from the past. John Reuchlin specifies it as symbolical
reception, signifying that the doctrine is not comprised simply in its
surface meaning. He says further that it is of Divine Revelation, and
that it belongs primarily to the life-giving contemplation of God. This
is in the universal sense, but it is concerned also with secret teaching
respecting particular things, meaning things manifest — contetnplatio
formarum separaiai-um.
The History of Magic
It is this that the erudite and ill-starred Dupuis
should have found on Indian planispheres and in tables
of Denderah ; he would not have ended by rejecting the
truly catholic or universal and eternal religion in the
presence of the unanimous affirmation of all Nature, as
well as all monuments of science throughout the ages.^
It was the memory of this scientific and religious absolute,
of this doctrine summarised in a word, of this word
alternately lost and recovered, which was transmitted to
the elect of all antique initiations. Whether preserved
or profaned in the celebrated Order of the Temple, it
was this same memory handed on to secret associations
of Rosicrucians, lUuminati and Freemasons which gave
a meaning to their strange rites, to their less or more
conventional signs, and a justification above all to their
devotion 'in common, as well as a clue to their power.
That profanation has befallen the doctrines and
mysteries of Magic we have no intention to deny; repeated
from age to age, the misuse itself has been a great and
terrible lesson for those who made secret things unwisely
known. The Gnostics caused the Gnosis to be prohibited
by Christians, and the official sanctuary was closed to
high initiation. The hierarchy of knowledge was thus
compromised by the intervention of usurping ignorance,
while the disorders within the sanctuary were reproduced
in the state, for, willingly or otherwise, the king always
depends from the priest, and it is towards the eternal
adytum of divine instruction that earthly powers will
ever look for consecration and for energy to insure their
permanence.
^ The reference is to LOrigine de tons les Ciiltes^ on Religion Univer-
selhy 12 vols, in 8vo, together with an atlas in 4to. Paris, 1794. The
work endeavoured to shew the unity of dogma under the multiplicity of
symbols and allegories. In other words, it explained religion by
astronomy, the cultus in the Hght of the calendar, mystv^ries of grace
by means of natural phenomena. An abridgment in a small volume
appeared about 1821. The Table of Denderah or Dendra was a great
zodiac sculptured on the ceiling of the portico belonging to the Temple
at that place, which was the ancient Tentyrio.
4
Introduction
The key of science has been thrown to children ; as
might have been expected, it is now, therefore, mislaid
and practically lost. This notwithstanding, a man of
high intuitions and great moral courage. Count Joseph de
Maistre, who was also a resolute catholic, acknowledging
that the world was void of religion and could not so
remain, turned his eyes instinctively towards the last
sanctuaries of occultism and called, with heartfelt prayers,
for that day when the natural affinity which subsists
between science and faith should combine them in the
mind of a single man of genius. ** This will be grand,"
said he ; ** it will finish that eighteenth century which is
still with us. . . . We shall talk then of our present
stupidity as we now dilate on the barbarism of the
Middle Ages/'
The prediction of Count Joseph de Maistre is in
course of realisation ; the alliance of science and faith,
acomplished long since, is here in fine made manifest,
though not by a man of genius. Genius is not needed to
see the sun, and, moreover, it has never demonstrated
anything but its rare greatness and its lights inaccessible
to the crowd. The grand truth demands only to be
found, when the simplest will be able to comprehend it
and to prove it also at need. At the same time that
truth will never become vulgar, because it is hierarchic
and because anarchy alone humours the bias of the crowd.
The masses are not in need of absolute truths ; were it
otherwise, pfogress would be arrested and life would
cease in humanity ; the ebb and flow of contrary ideas,
the clash of opinions, the passions of the time, ever
impelled by its dreams, are necessary to the intellectual
growth of peoples. The masses know it full well, and
hence they desert so readily the chair of doctors to
collect about the rostrum of mountebanks. Some even
who are assumed to be concerned in philosophy, and that
perhaps especially, too often resemble the children play-
ing at charades, who hasten to turn out those who know
5
The History of Magic
the answer already, lest the game should be spoiled by
depriving the puzzle of the questions of all its interest.
^* Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God '* has been said by Eternal Wisdom. Purity of heart
therefore purifies intelligence, and rectitude of will makes
for precision in understanding. Whosoever prefers truth
and justice before all things shall have justice and truth
for his reward, because supreme Providence has endowed
us with freedom in order that we may attain life ; and
very truth, all its exactitude notwithstanding, intervenes
only with mildness, never does outrage to tardiness or
violence to the errors of our will when it is beguiled by
the allurements of falsehood.
It remains, however, according to Bossuet, that ante-
cedent to anything which may please or repel our senses,
there is a truth, and it is by this that our conduct should
be governed, not by our appetites. The Kingdom of
Heaven is not the empire of caprice, either in respect of
man or God. "A thing is not just because it is willed
by God," said St. Thomas, *' but God wills it because it
is just." The Divine Balance rules and necessitates
eternal mathematics. '' God has made all things with
number, weight and measure " — here it is the Bible
speaking.^ Measure an angle of creation, make a pro-
portionally progressive multiplication, and all infinity
shall multiply its circles, peopled by universes, passing in
proportional segments between the extending symbolical
arms of your compass. Suppose now that, from what-
ever point of the infinite above you, a hand holds another
compass or square, then the lines of the celestial triangle
will meet of necessity those of the compass of science and
will form therewith the mysterious star of Solomon.^
^ Sed omnia in mensiira^ ei ni(i)ierL\ et pondcrc disposuisfi : "But
Thou liHst ordered all things in measure and number and weight." —
Wisdom, xi. 21.
■■' The tonventional Hexagram presents in pictorial symbolism the root
doctrine of the Hermetic Emerald Tablet : " That which is above is equal
to that which is below." It is the sign of the interpenetration of worlds.
6
Introductio7t
*^ With what measure you mete, it shall be measured
to you again," says the Gospel. God does not strive with
man that He may crush man by His grandeur, and He
never places unequal weights in His balance. When He
would test the strength of Jacob, He assumes the form of
man ; the patriarch withstands the onset through an entire
night ; at the end there is a blessing for the conquered
and, in addition to the glory of having sustained such a
struggle, he is given the national title of Israel, being a
name which signifies — Strong against God.^
We have heard Christians more zealous than in-
structed hazarding a strange explanation of the dogma
concerning eternal punishment by suggesting that God
may avenge infinitely an offence which itself is finite,
because if the offender is limited the grandeur of the
offended being is not. An emperor of the world might,
on the strength of a similar pretext, sentence to death
some unreasoning child who had soiled accidentally the
hem of his purple. Far otherwise are the prerogatives
of greatness, and St. Augustine understood them better
when he said that '' God is patient because He is eternal."
In God all is justice, seeing that all is goodness ; He
never forgives after the manner of men, for He is never
angered like them ; but evil being, by its nature, incom-
patible with good, as night is with day, as discord is
with harmony, and the liberty of man being furthermore
inviolable, all error is expiated and all evil punished by
suffering proportioned thereto. It is vain to invoke the
help of Jupiter when our cart is stuck in the mud ;
unless we take pick and shovel, like the waggoner in the
fable. Heaven will not draw us out of the rut. Help
yourself and God will help you. In such a reasonable
^ According to the Zohar, Pt. I,, fol. 2i<2, 2\b, it was with the guardian
angel of Esau that Jacob wrestled at the place which he named Peniel.
The angel could not prevail against Jacob because the latter derived his
strength from the^ Supreme Light, Kether^ and from Chohnah^ which is
the second hypostasis. He therefore smote Jacob on the right thigh,
which signifies the seventh Sephira^ or Neizach.
7
The History of Magic
and wholly philosophical way is explained the possible
and necessary eternity of punishment, with still a narrow
way open for man to escape therefrom — being that of toil
and repentance.^
It is by conformity with the rules of eternal power
that man may unite himself to the creative energy and
become creator and preserver in his turn. God has not
limited narrowly the number of rounds on Jacob's ladder
of light. Whatsoever Nature has constituted inferior to
man is thereby to him made subject : it is for man to
extend his domain in virtue of continual ascent. Length
and even perpetuity of life, the field of air and its storms,
the earth and its metallic veins, light and its wondrous
illusions, darkness and the dreams thereof, death and its
ghosts — all these do therefore obey the royal sceptre of
the magi, the shepherd's staff of Jacob and the terrible
wand of Moses. The adept becomes king of the
elements, transmuter of metals, interpreter of visions,
controller of oracles, master of life in fine, according to
the mathematical order of Nature and conformably to the
will of the Supreme Intelligence. This is Magic in all its
glory. But is there anyone who in these days will dare
to give credence to such words ? The answer is — those
who will study loyally and attain knowledge frankly.
We make no attempt to conceal truth under the veil of
parables or hieroglyphical signs ; the time has come when
everything should be told, and we propose to tell every-
thing. It is our intention, in short, to unveil that ever
secret science which, as we have indicated, is hidden
behind the shadows of ancient mysteries, which the
Gnostics betrayed clumsily, or rather disfigured un-
worthily, which is recognised dimly under the darkness
shrouding the pretended crimes of Templars, which is
* The more usual argument of high orthodox theology in the Latin
school is that a sin against the Infinite Being is one of infinite cul-
pability. If it were suggested in rejoinder that it must be one of infinite
inconsequence, so far as that Being is concerned, it might noL be more
reasonable than the argument, but it would do less outrage to logic.
8
Intro dice tio7i>
met with once again beneath the now impenetrable
enigmas of High-Grade Masonic Rites. We purpose
further to bring into open day the fantastic King of the
Sabbath, to expose the very roots of Black Magic and its
frightful realities, long since surrendered to the derision
of the grand-children of Voltaire.
For a great number of readers Magic is the science
of the devil — even as the science of light is identified
with that of darkness. We confess boldly at the outset
that we are not in terror of the devil. " My fear is for
those who fear him,'' said St. Teresa. But we testify also
that he does not prompt our laughter and that the
ridicule of which he is often the object seems to us ex-
ceedingly misplaced. However this may be, it is our
intention to bring him before the light of science. But
the devil and science — the apposition of two names so
strangely incongruous — must seem to have disclosed the
whole intent in view. If the mystic personification of
darkness be thus dragged into light, is it not to an-
nihilate the phantom of falsehood in the presence of
truth ? Is it not to dispel in the day all formless
monsters of the night? Superficial persons will think
so and will condemn without hearing. Ill-instructed
Christians will conclude that we are sapping the funda-
mental dogma of their ethics by decrying hell ; and
others will question the utility of combating error in
which, as they imagine, no one believes longer. It is,
therefore, important to enunciate our object clearly and
establish our principles solidly.
We say, therefore, to Christians that the author of this
book is a Christian like yourselves. His faith is that of
a catholic strongly and deeply convinced ; for this reason
he does not come forward to deny dogmas, but to com-
bat impiety under its most pernicious forms, which are
those of false belief and superstition. He comes to drag
from the darkness the black successor of Ahriman, in
order to expose in broad day his colossal impotence and
9
The History of Magic
redoubtable misery. He comes to make subject the age-
long problem of evil to the solutions or science, to
uncrown the king of hell and to bow down his head at
the foot of the cross. Is not virginal and maternal
science — that science of which Mary is the sweet and
luminous image — destined like her to crush the head of
the old serpent ?
The author, on the other hand, would say to pre-
tended philosophy : Why seek to deny that which you
cannot understand } Is not the unbelief which affirms
in the face of the unknown more precipitate and less
consoling than faith } Does the dreadful form of per-
sonified evil only prompt you to smile } Hear you not
the ceaseless sobbing of humanity which writhes and
weeps in the crushing folds of the monster ? Have you
never heard the atrocious laugh of the evil-doer who is
persecuting the just man .f* Have you never experienced
in yourselves the opening of those infernal deeps which
the genius of perversity furrows in every soul ? Moral
evil exists — such is the unhappy truth ; it reigns in
certain spirits ; it inc?»rnates in certain men ; it is there-
fore personified, and thus demons exist ; but the most
wicked of these demons is Satan. More than this I do
not ask you to admit, and it will be difficult for you to
grant me less.
Let it be otherwise and clearly understood that
science and faith render mutual support to one another
only in so far as their respective realms remain inviolably
distinct. What is it that we believe ? That which we do
not know absolutely, though we may yearn for it with all
our strength. The object of faith is not more than an
indispensable hypothesis for science ; the things which are
in the domain of knowledge must never be judged by the
processes of faith, nor, conversely, the things of faith
according to the measures of science. The end of faith
is not scientifically debatable. " I believe because it is
absurd,'* said Tertullian; and this utterance — paradoxical
lO
Introduction
on the surface as it is — belongs to the highest reason. As
a fact, beyond all that we can suppose rationally there is
an infinite towards which we aspire with unquenchable
thirst, and it eludes even our dreams. But is not the
infinite itself an absurdity for our finite appreciation }
We feel ail the same that it is ; the infinite invades
us, overflows us, renders us dizzy at its abysses and
crushes us by its awful height.
Scientifically probable hypotheses are one and all the
last half-lights or shadows of science ; faith begins where
reason falls exhausted. Beyond human reason there is
that Reason which is Divine — for my weakness a supreme
absurdity, but an infinite absurdity which confounds me,
and in which I believe.
The good alone is infinite ; evil is not ; and hence if
God be the eternal object of faith, then the devil belongs
to science. In which of the catholic creeds is there any
question concerning him } Would it not be blasphemy
to say that we believe in him } In Holy Scripture he is
named but not defined. Genesis makes no allusion to a
reputed revolt of angels ; it ascribes the fall of Adam
to the serpent, as to the most subtle and dangerous of
living beings. We are acquainted with Christian tradition
on this subject ; but if that tradition is explicable by one
of the greatest and most diflfused allegories of science,
what can such solution signify to the faith which aspires
only to God, which despises the pomps and works of
Lucifer "^^
Lucifer — Light-Bearer — how strange a name, attri-
buted to the spirit of darkness ! Is it he who carries the
light and yet blinds feeble souls } The answer is yes,
unquestionably ; for traditions are full of divine dis-
closures and inspirations. ** Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light,'* says St. Paul. And Christ
Himself said : ** I beheld Satan as lightning fall from
heaven." So also the prophet Isaiah : *' How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning."
II
"The History of Magic
Lucifer is then a fallen star — a meteor which is on fire al-
ways, which burns when it enlightens no longer. But is this
Lucifer a person or a force, an angel or a strayed thunder-
bolt ? Tradition supposes that it is an angel, but the
Psalmist says : *' Who maketh his angels spirits ; his
ministers a flaming fire." The word angel is applied in
the Bible to all messengers of God — emissaries or new
creations, revealers or scourges, radiant spirits or bril-
liant objects. The shafts of fire which the Most High
darts through the clouds are angels of His wrath, and
such figurative language is familiar to all readers of
eastern poetry.
Having been the world's terror through the period of
the middle ages, the devil has become its mockery.^
Heir to the monstrous forms of all false gods cast down
successively from their thrones, the grotesque scarecrow
has turned into a mere bugbear through very deformity
and hideousness. Yet observe as to this that those only
dare to laugh at the devil who know not the fear of God.
Can it be that for many diseased imaginations he is God*s
own shadow, or is he not often the idol of degenerate
souls who only understand supernatural power as the
exercise of cruelty with impunity }
But it is important to ascertain whether the notion
of this evil power can be reconciled with that of God —
in a word, whether the devil exists, and in such case
what he is. There is no longer any question of super-
stition or of ridiculous invention ; it is a question of
religion alone and hence of the whole future, with all the
interests, of humanity.
Strange reasoners indeed are we : we call ourselves
strong-minded when we are indiflFerent to everything
* It is to be noted, however, that there was mockery of its kind in the
middle ages, that Satan and his emissaries in folk-lore appear under
ridiculous lights. There is the prototypical story of the devil who gave
a course of lectures on Black Magic at the University of Salamanca and
demanded, as a consideration, the soul of one of his hearers ; but he was
cheated with the student's shadow.
12
Introduction
except material advantages, as, for example, money ;
and we leave to their own devices the ideas which are
mothers of opinions and may, or at least can, by their
sudden veering, upset all fortunes. A conquest of
science is much more important than the discovery of
a gold mine. Given science, gold is utilised in the ser-
vice of life ; given ignorance, wealth furnishes only de-
stroying weapons.
For the rest, it is to be understood absolutely that
our scientific revelations pause in the presence of faith,
that — as Christian and Catholic — our work is submitted
entirely to the supreme judgment of the Church. This
said, to those who question the existence of a devil, we
would point out that whatsoever has a name exists ;
speech may be uttered in vain, but in itself it cannot
be vain, and it has a meaning invariably. The Word
is never void, and if it be written that it is in God, as
also that it is God, this is because it is the expression
and the proof of being and of truth. The devil is named
and personified in the Gospel, which is the Word of truth ;
he exists therefore and can be considered as a person. But
here it is the Christian who defers : let science or reason
speak ; these two are one.^
Evil exists ; it is impossible to doubt it ; we can work
good or evil. There are beings who work evil knowingly
and willingly. The spirit which animates these beings
and prompts them to do ill is bewrayed, turned aside
from the right road, and thrown across the path of good
as an obstacle ; this is the precise meaning of the Greek
word diaholoSy which we render as devil. The spirits
who love and perform evil are accidentally bad. There
^ In his earlier work, The Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental
MagiCy Eliphas L^vi affirms {a) on the authority of a writer whom he
does not name, that the devil is God, as understood by the wicked ;
{b) on another authority, that the devil is composed of God's ruins ;
(c) that the devil is the Great Magical Agent employed for evil purposes
by a perverse will ; {d) that he is death masquerading in the cast-off
garments of life ; {e) that Satan, Beelzebub, Adramelek, &c., do not
designate spiritual unities, but legions of impure spirits.
13
The History of Magic
is therefore a devil who is the spirit of error, wilful
ignorance, vertigo ; there are beings under his obedience
who are his envoys, emissaries, angels ; and it is for this
reason that the Gospel speaks of an eternal fire which
is prepared, and in a sense predestined, for the devil
and his angels. These words are themselves a reve-
lation, so let us search their meaning, giving, in the
first place, a concise definition of evil. Evil is the ab-
sence of rectitude in being. Moral evil is falsehood in
action, as the lie is a crime in speech. Injustice is of
the essence of lying, and every lie is In injustice. When
that which we utter is just, there is no falsity. When
that which we do is equitable and true in mode, there
is no sin. Injustice is the death of moral being, as lying
is the poison of intelligence. The false spirit is there-
fore a spirit of death. Those who hearken to him become
his dupes and are by him poisoned. But if we had to
take his absolute personification seriously, he would be
himself absolutely dead and absolutely deceived, which
means that the affirmation of his existence must imply
a patent contradiction. Jesus said that the devil is a
liar like his father. Who then is the father of the
devil ? Whosoever gives him a personal existence by
living in accordance with his inspirations ; the man who
diabolises himself is the father of the incarnate spirit
of evil. But there is a rash, impious and monstrous
conception, traditional like the pride of the Pharisees,
and in fine there is a hybrid creation which armed the
paltry philosophy of the eighteenth century with an
apparent defence. It is the false Lucifer of the hetero-
dox legend — that angel proud enough to think that he
was God, brave enough to buy independence at the price
of eternal torment, beautiful enough to worship himself
in the plenary Divine Light ; strong enough to reign
still in darkness and in dole and to make a throne of his
inextinguishable fire. It is the Satan of the heretical and
republican Milton, the pretended hero of black eternities,
Introduction
calumniated by deformity, bedecked with horns and
talons which would better become his implacable tor-
mentor. It is the devil who is king of evil, as if evil
were a kingdom, who is more intelligent than the men
of genius that fear his wiles. It is {a) that black light,
that darkness with eyes, that power which God has not
willed but which no fallen creature could create ; {]>) that
prince of anarchy served by a hierarchy of pure spirits ; ^
(r) that exile of God who on earth seems, like Him,
everywhere, but is more tangible, is more for the majority
in evidence, and is served better than God himself; {d)
that conquered one, to whom the victor gives his children
that he may devour them ; (^) that artificer of sins of the
flesh, to whom flesh is nothing, and who therefore can be
nothing to flesh, unless indeed he be its creator and master,
like God ; (/) that immense, realised, personified and
eternal lie ; {g) that death which cannot die ; {K) that
blasphemy which the Word of God will never silence ;
(/') that poisoner of souls whom God tolerates by a contra-
diction of His omnipotence or preserves as the Roman
emperors guarded Locusta among the trophies of their
reign ; {k) that executed criminal, living still to curse
his Judge and still have a cause against him, since he
will never repent ; (/) that monster accepted as execu-
tioner by the Sovereign Power, and who, according to
the forcible expression of an old catholic writer, may
term God the God of the devil by describing himself
as a devil of God.
Such is the irreligious phantom which blasphemes
' In speaking of evil and a possible Prince of Darkness, it is neces-
sary to proceed carefully, if we are confined, like Eliphas Levi, within the
measures of a theory of opposites. The definition of evil as the absence
of rectitude is entirely insufficient to cover the facts of experience ; it is
that indeed, but it is also as much more as may be necessary to account
for its positive and active side. The truth is that positive and negative
are on both sides of the eternal balance of things postulated by the theory.
So far as it goes, evil is the absence of rectitude, and, so far as it goes
also, rectitude is the absence of evil ; but the vital aspects of good and
bad have slipped between the fingers of definition in both cases.
IS
The History of Magic
religion. Away with this idol which hides our Saviour.
Down with the tyrant of falsehood, the black god of
Manicheans, the Ahriman of old idolaters. Live God and
His Word incarnate, who saw Satan fall from heaven.
And live Mary, the Divine Mother, who crushed the
head of the infernal serpent.
So cry with one voice the traditions of saints, and
so cry faithful hearts. The attribution of any greatness
whatsoever to a fallen spirit is a slander on Divinity ; the
ascription of any royalty whatsoever to the rebel spirit
is to encourage revolt and be guilty, at least in thought,
of that crime which the horror of the middle ages termed
sorcery. For all the offences visited with death on the
old sorcerers were real crimes and were indeed the greatest
of all. They stole fire from heaven, like Prometheus ;
they rode winged dragons and the flying serpent, like
Medea ; they poisoned the breathable air, like the sliadow
of the manchineel tree ; they profaned sacred things and
even used the body of the Lord in works of destruc-
tion and malevolence.
How is all this possible.'* Because there is a com-
posite agent, a natural and divine agent, at once corporeal
and spiritual, an universal plastic mediator, a common
receptacle for vibrations of movement and images of
form, a fluid and a force which may be called, in a sense
at least, the imagination of Nature. By the mediation
of this force every nervous apparatus is in secret com-
munication together ; hence come sympathy and anti-
pathy, hence dreams, hence the phenomena of second
sight and extra-natural vision. This universal agent of
Nature's works is the Od of the Jews and of Reichenbach,
the Astral Light of the Martinists,^ which denomination
we prefer as the more explicit.
* Saint-Martin recognises the existence of an astral region, which is
apparently that of sidereal rule. There is, in his view a certain science
of this region, and of this the active branch is theurgic, while the passive
engenders somnambulism. These divisions constitute the elementary
science of the astral, but above these there is one which is more fatal
i6
Introduction
The existence and possible employment of this force
constitute the great secret of Practical Magic ; it is the
Wand of Thaumaturgy and the Key of Black Magic.
It is the Edenic serpent who transmitted to Eve the
seductions of a fallen angel. The Astral Light warms,
illuminates, magnetises, attracts, repels, vivifies, destroys,
coagulates, separates, breaks and conjoins everything,
under the impetus of powerful wills. God created it
on the first day, when He said : ** Let there be light."
This force of itself is blind but is directed by Egregores,
that is, by chiefs of souls, or, in other words, by energetic
and active spirits.^
Herein is the complete explanatory theory of pro-
digies and miracles. How, as a fact, could good and
bad alike compel Nature to reveal her hidden forces,
how could there be divine and diabolical miracles,
how could the reprobate and bewrayed spirit have more
power in certain ways and cases than the just spirit,
which is in truth so powerful in simplicity and wisdom,
unless we postulate an instrument which all can use,
upon certain conditions, but some for the great good
and others for the great evil ?
Pharaoh's magicians accomplished at first the same
miracles as Moses. The instrument which they used
was therefore the same ; the inspiration alone differed ;
when they confessed themselves conquered, they pro-
and dangerous, of which he refuses to speak. There is no Martinistic
doctrine ccmcerning the Astral Light, understood as an universal
medium. Eliphas Levi seems to have used the term Martinism in a
general sense, as if it included the school of Martines de Pasqually.
Pasqually, however, has no doctrine concerning the Astral Light.
Modern French Martinism has read it into Saint-Martin's rather ridicu-
lous " epico-magical poem'' or allegory, called Le Crocodile, much as
another school of experiment might find therein a veiled account of the
^kasic records and the mode of their study. I refer to the story of
Atlantis, which begins at Cha?tt 64 and occupies a large part of the
book. The account of the Chair of Silence is very curious in this
connection.
^ If the word is of Greek origin it seems to connect with the idea
of watchers rather than leaders. Cf. 6 e7/)777opos = Vigil, in the Sep-
tuagint.
17 B
The History of Magic
claimed that, for them, human powers had reached their
limit, and that there must be something superhuman
in Moses. ^ This took place in Egypt, that mother of
magical initiations, that land where it was all occult
science, hierarchic and sacred instruction. Was it, how-
ever, more difficult to make flies appear than frogs ?
No, assuredly ; but the magicians knew that the fluidic
projection by which the eyes are biologised cannot pro-
ceed beyond certain bounds, and these had been passed
already by Moses.^
A particular phenomenon occurs when the brain is
congested or overcharged by Astral Light ; sight is
turned inward, instead of outward ; night falls on the
external and real world, while fantastic brilliance shines
on the world of dreams ; even the physical eyes experi-
ence a slight quivering and turn up inside the lids. The
soul then perceives by means of images the reflection of
its impressions and thoughts. This is to say that the
analogy subsisting between idea and form attracts in the
Astral Light a reflection representing that form, con-
figuration being the essence of the vital light ; it is the
universal imagination, of which each of us appropriates
a lesser or greater part according to our grade of
sensibility and memory. Therein is the source of all
apparitions, all extraordinary visions and all the intuitive
phenomena peculiar to madness or ecstasy.
The appropriation or assimilation of the light by
clairvoyant sensibility is one of the greatest phenomena
which can be studied by science. It may be understood
in a day to come that seeing is actually speaking and
that the consciousness of light is a twilight of eternal
^ The Kabalistic explanation is {a) that Egyptian Magic was real
Magic ; {b) that its wisdom was of the lowermost degree only ; {c) that it
was overcome by the superior degrees, by which the serpent above, or
Metatron, dominates the serpent below, namely, Samael. See Zohar^
Part II.,fol. iZa.
^ Elsewhere Eliphas Levi suggests that Pharaoh's magicians refused
rather than failed and that the production of flies was beneath the
dignity of their Magic.
t8
Introduction
life in being. The word of God Himself, Who creates
light, and is uttered by all intelligence that conceives of
forms and seeks to visualise them. ** Let there be light."
Light in the mode of brightness exists only for eyes
which look thereon, and the soul enamoured with the
pageant of universal beauty, and fixing its attention on
that luminous script of the endless book which is called
things manifest, seems to cry on its own part, as God at
the dawn of the first day, the sublime and creative words :
Fiat lux.
We do not all see with the same eyes, and creation is
not for all the same in colour and form. Our brain is a
book printed within and without, and with the smallest
degree of excitement, the writing becomes blurred, as
occurs continually in cases of intoxication and madness.
Dream then triumphs over real life and plunges reason
in a sleep which knows no waking. This condition of
hallucination has its degrees; all passions are intoxica-
tions ; all enthusiasms are comparative and graduated
manias. The lover sees only infinite perfections encom-
passing that object by which he is fascinated. But,
unhappy infatuation of voluptuaries, to-morrow this
odour of wine which allures him will become a repugnant
reminiscence, causing a thousand loathings and a thou-
sand disgusts.
To understand the use of this force, but never to be
obsessed and never overcome thereby, is to trample on
the serpent's head, and it is this which we learn from
the Magic of Light ; in such secrets are contained all
mysteries of magnetism, which name can indeed be
applied to the whole practical part of antique Transcen-
dental Magic. Magnetism is the wand of miracles, but
it is this for initiates only ; for rash and uninstructed
people, who would sport with it or make it subserve
their passions, it is as dangerous as that consuming glory
which, according to the allegorical fable, destroyed the
too ambitious Semele in the embraces of Jupiter.
19
The History of Magic
One of the great benefits of magnetism is that it
demonstrates by incontestable facts the spirituality, unity
and immortality of the soul ; and these things once made
certain, God is manifested to all intelligences and all
hearts. Thereafter, from the belief in God and from
the harmonies of creation, we are led to that great reli-
gious harmony which does not exist outside the miracu-
lous and lawful hierarchy of the Catholic Church, for this
alone has preserved all traditions of science and faith.
The primal tradition of the one and only revelation
has been preserved under the name of Kabalah by the
priesthood of Israel. Kabalistic doctrine, which is that
of Transcendental Magic, is contained in the Sepher Tet-
zirah^ the Zohar and the Talmud,^ According to this
doctrine, the absolute is Being, and therein is the Word,
which expresses the reason of Being and of life. The
principle therefore is that Being is being, n\"iN "ik^k n\nK.
In the beginning the Word was, which means that it is,
has been and shall be ; and this is reason which speaks.
In the beginning was the Word. The Word is the
reason of belief, and therein also is the expression of
that faith which gives life to science. The Word, or
Logos, is the wellspring of logic. Jesus is the Incarnate
Word. The concord of reason with faith, of science
with belief, of authority with liberty, has become in
these modern days the real enigma of the sphinx. Coin-
cidentally with this great problem there has come forward
that which concerns the respective rights of man and
woman. This was inevitable, for between the several
terms of a great and supreme question, there is a constant
analogy, and the difficulties, like the correspondences, are
* It should be mentioned that this enumeration is in the reverse order
of chronology, and it is not, as it happens, even in accordance with what
may be called traditional chronology. Legend says — and ]feliphas L^vi
himself mentions subsequently — that the Sepher' Yetzirah was the work
of Abraham and that the Zohar is in its root-matter a literal record of
discourses delivered by R. Simeon Ben Jochai, after the fall of Jerusalem,
A.D. 70. The Jerusalem and Babylon Talmuds are admittedly growths
of some centuries.
20
THE GREAT SYMBOL OF SOLOMON
Facing p. 20
Introduction
invariably the same. The loosening of this Gordian knot
of philosophy and modern politics is rendered apparently
paradoxical, because in order to effect an agreement be-
tween the terms of the required equation, there is always
a tendency to confuse the one with the other. If there
is anything that deserves to be called supreme absurdity,
it is to inquire how faith becomes a reason, reason a
belief and liberty an authority ; or reciprocally, how the
woman becomes a man and the man a woman. The
definitions themselves intervene against such confusion,
and it is by maintaining a perfect distinction between the
terms, and so only, that we can bring them into agree-
ment. The perfect and eternal distinction between the
two primal terms of the creative syllogism, for the de-
monstration of their harmony in virtue of the analogy of
opposites, is the second great principle of that occult
philosophy veiled under the name of Kabalah and indi-
cated by all sacred hieroglyphics of the old sanctuaries,
as by the rites, even now understood so little, of ancient
and modern Masonry.
We read in Scripture that Solomon erected two brazen
columns before the door of his Temple, one of them
being called Jachin and the other Boaz^ meaning the
strong and the weak.^ These two pillars represented
man and woman, reason and faith, power and liberty,
Cain and Abel, right and duty. They were pillars of
the intellectual and moral world, the monumental hiero-
glyphic of the antinomy inevitable to the grand law of
^ The meanings ascribed to the names and inscriptions on the two
Pillars of the Temple will be of curious interest to members of the
Masonic Fraternity, who will be reminded of variants with which they
are themselves familiar. It must be said, however, that the explana-
tion of L^vi corresponds neither to Masonic nor Kabalistic symbolism.
According to the latter Boaz is the left-hand Pillar, being that of Severity
in the scheme of the Sephirotic Tree ; it answers to Hod^ and the mean-
ing attached to its name is Strength and Vigour. Jachin is on the right
hand, answering to Netzach on the Tree ; it signifies the state of becom-
ing established. That which is made firm between //^^and Netzach is
Malkuth^ or the kingdom below. This is the late Kabalism of the tract
entitled Garden of Pomegranates.
21
The History of Magic
creation. The meaning is that every force postulates a
resistance on which it can work, every light a shadow as
its foil, every convex a concave, every influx a receptacle,
every reign a kingdom, every sovereign a people, every
workman a first matter, every conqueror something to
overcome. Affirmation rests on negation, the strong can
only triumph because of weakness, the aristocracy cannot
be manifested except by rising above the people. For
the weak to become strong, for the people to acquire an
aristocratic position, is a question of transformation and
of progress, but it is without prejudice to the first prin-
ciples ; the weak will be ever the weak and it matters
nothing if they are not always the same persons. The
people in like manner will ever remain the people, the
mass which is ruled and is not capable of ruling. In
the vast army of inferiors, every personal emancipation
is an automatic desertion, which, happily, is impercep-
tible because it is replaced, also automatically ; a king-
nation or a people of kings would presuppose the slavery
of the world and anarchy in a single city, outside all
discipline, as at Rome in the days of its greatest glory.
A nation of sovereigns would be inevitably as anarchic as a
class of experts or of scholars who deemed that they were
masters ; there would be none to listen ; all would dog-
matise and all give orders at once.
The radical emancipation of womanhood falls within
the same category. If, integrally and radically, the
woman leaves the passive and enters the active condition,
she abdicates her sex and becomes man, or rather, as such
a transformation is impossible physically, she attains
affirmation by a double negation, placing herself outside
both sexes, like a sterile and monstrous androgyne.
These are strict consequences of the great Kabalistic
dogma respecting that distinction of contraries which
reaches harmony by the analogy of their proportions.
This dogma once recognised, and the application of its
results being made universally by the law of analogies,
22
Introduction
will mean a discovery of the greatest secrets concerning
maternal sympathy and antipathy ; it will mean also a dis-
covery of the science of government in things political,
in marriage, in all branches of occult medicine, whether
magnetism, homoeopathy, or moral influence. Moreover,
and as it is intended to qxplain, the law of equilibrium
in analogy leads to the discovery of an universal agent
which was the Grand Secret of alchemists and magicians
in the middle ages. It has been said that this agent is
a light of life by which animated beings are rendered
magnetic, electricity being only its accident and transient
perturbation, so to speak. The practice of that mar-
vellous Kabalah to which we shall turn shortly, for the
satisfaction of those who look, in the secret sciences, after
emotions rather than wise teachings, reposes entirely in
the knowledge and use of this agent.
The religion of the Kabalists is at once hypothesis
and certitude, for it proceeds from known to unknown
by the help of analogy. They recognise religion as a
need of humanity, as an evident and necessary fact, and
it is this alone which for them is divine, permanent and
universal revelation. They dispute about nothing which
is, but they provide the reason for everything. So also
their doctrine, by distinguishing clearly the line of de-
marcation which must exist for ever between science and
faith, provides a basis for faith in the highest reason,
guaranteeing its incontestable and permanent duration.
After this come the popular forms of doctrine, which
alone can vary and alone destroy one another ; the
Kabalist is not only undisturbed by trivialities of this
kind, but can provide on the spot a reason for the most
astonishing formulas. It follows that his prayer can be
joined to that of humanity at large, to direct it by illus-
trations from science and reason and draw it into orthodox
channels. If Mary be mentioned, he will revere the
realisation in her of all that is divine in the dreams of
innocence, all that is adorable in the sacred enthusiasm
23
The History of Magic
of every maternal heart. It is not he who will refuse
flowers to adorn the altars of the Mother of God, or
white banners for her chapels, or even tears for her in-
genuous legends. It is not he who will mock at the
new-born God weeping in the manger or the wounded
victim of Calvary. He repeats nevertheless, from the
bottom of his heart, like the sages of Israel and the
faithful believers of Islam : There is no God but God.
For the initiates of true science, this signifies : There is
but one Being, and this is Being. But all that is expe-
dient and touching in beliefs, but the splendour of rituals,
the pageant of divine creations, the grace of prayers, the
magic of heavenly hopes — are not these the radiance of
moral life in all its youth and beauty } Could anything
alienate the true initiate from public prayers and temples,
could anything raise his disgust or indignation against
religious forms of all kinds, it would be the manifest
unbelief of priests or people, want of dignity in the
ceremonies of the cultus — in a word, the profanation of
holy things. God is truly present when He is wor-
shipped by recollected souls and feeling hearts ; He is
absent, sensibly and terribly, when discussed without
light or zeal — that is to say, without understanding
or love.
The adequate conception of God according to in-
structed Kabalism is that which was revealed by St. Paul
when he said that to attain God we must believe that He
is and that He recompenses those who seek Him out.
So is there nothing outside the idea of being, in combina-
tion with the idea of goodness and justice : these alone are
absolute. To say that there is no God or to define what
He is, constitutes equal blasphemy. Every definition of
God hazarded by human intelligence is a recipe of
religious empiricism, out of which superstition will sub-
sequently extract a devil.
In Kabalistic symbolism the representation of God is
always by a duplicated image — one erect, the other re-
24
Introduction
versed ; one white, and the other black.^ In such mannei
did the sages seek to express the intelligent and vulgar
conceptions of the same idea — that of the God of light
and the God of shadow. To the miscomprehension of
this symbol must be referred the Persian Ahriman — that
black but divine ancestor of all demons. The dream of
the infernal king is but a false notion of God.
Light in the absence of shadow wouH be invisible
for our eyes, since it would produce an overpowering
brilliance equal to the greatest darkness. In the analogies
of this physical truth, understood and considered ade-
quately, a solution will be found for one of the most
terrible of problems, the origin of evil. But to grasp it
fully, together with all its consequences, is not meant for
the multitude, who must not penetrate so readily into
the secrets of universal harmony. It was only after the
initiate of the Eleusinian mysteries had passed victori-
ously through all the tests, had seen and touched the
holy things, that, if he were judged strong enough to
withstand the last and most dreadful secret, a veiled
priest passed him at flying pace and uttered in his ear
the enigmatic words : Osiris is a black god. So was
Osiris — of whom Typhon is the oracle — and so was the
divine religious sun of Egypt, eclipsed suddenly, becom-
ing the shadow of that grand, indefinable Isis who is all
that has been and shall be, and whose eternal veil has no
one lifted.
Light is the active principle for Kabalists, while
darkness is analogous to the passive principle, for which
reason th^^y egarded the sun and moon as emblems of
the two di\ine sexes and the two creative forces. So
also they attributed to woman the first temptation and
^ This is the particular construction which is placed by L6vi on the
texts with which he is assuming to deal,and it is not really justified by these.
The Zohar has, however, a doctrine of the Unknown Darkness. The
Infinite is neither light nor splendour, though all lights emanate there-
from. It is a Supreme Will, exceeding human comprehension, and more
mysterious than all mysteries. See Zohar^ Part I., fol. 2y)a.
25
The History of Magic
sin, and subsequently the first labour — the maternal
labour of redemption : it is from the bosom of the dark
itself that light is reborn. The void attracts the
plenum^ and thus the abyss of poverty and wretchedness,
pretended evil, seeming nothingness and the ephemeral
rebellion of creatures, attracts eternally an ocean of
being, wealth, mercy and love. This interprets the
symbol of the Christ descending into hell after pouring
out upon the cross all immensities of the most mar-
vellous forgiveness.
By the same law of harmony in the analogy of
opposites the Kabalists explain also all mysteries of
sexual love. Why is this passion more permanent
between two unequal natures and two contrary charac-
ters } Why is there in love one always who immolates
and one who is victim .^ Why are the most obstinate
passions those the satisfaction of which would seem im-
possible.? By this law also they would have decided
once and for ever the question of precedence between the
sexes, as brought forward in all seriousness by the Saint-
Simonism of our own day. The natural strength of
woman being that of inertia or resistance, they would
have ruled that modesty is the most imprescriptible of
her rights, and hence that she must neither perform nor
desire anything demanding a species of masculine bold-
ness. Nature has otherwise provided to this end by
giving her a soft voice, not to be heard in large assem-
blies, unless raised to a ridiculously discordant pitch.
She who would aspire to the functions of the opposite
sex must forfeit thereby the prerogatives of her own. We
know not to what point she may arrive in the ruling of
men, but it is certain at least that in reaching it she will
lose the love of men and, that which will be more cruel
for her, the love of children.
The conjugal law of the Kabalists ^ furnishes further,
* tliphas L^vi does not seem always to have made the most of his
opportunities as regards the texts of Kabalism and the literature thereto
26
Introduction
by analogy, a solution of the most interesting and diffi-
cult problem of modern philosophy, being the agreement
between reason and faith, authority and liberty of con-
science, science and belief. If science be the sun, belief
is the moon — a reflection of day amidst night. Faith is
the supplement of reason in the darkness left by science
before and behind it. It emanates from reason but
can neither be confounded therewith nor bring it to con-
fusion. The trespasses of reason upon faith or of faith
upon reason are eclipses of sun or moon. When they
come about, both source and reflector of light are ren-
dered useless.
Science perishes on account of systems which are
no other than beliefs and faith succumbs to reason. In
order to sustain the edifice, the two pillars of the temple
must be parallel and separate. When they are brought
by force together, as Samson brought them, they are
thrown down, and the whole building collapses on the
blind zealot or revolutionary, whose personal or national
resentment has destined him beforehand to death. The
struggles between the spiritual and temporal powers at
all periods of humanity have been quarrels over domestie
management. The papacy has been a jealous mother,
seeking to supplant a husband in the temporal power,
and she has lost the confidence of her children, while
the temporal power in its usurpation of the priesthood
is not less ridiculous than a man who should pretend
to know better than a mother how to manage the home
and nursery. The English, for example, from the moral
belonging which were available at his period in Latin and certain
modern languages, including his own. He had otherwise little oppor-
tunity of learning the real message of the Zoharic cycle. Taking all
the circumstances into consideration, his guesses were sometimes very
shrewd, and here and there carry with them the suggestion of intuitions.
The teaching of the Zohar on the subject of sex postulates, like so much
of its doctrine, a secret tradition to which it never gives expression in
fulness, though it is incessantly lifting now one and now another corner
of the veil. It is, however, impossible to speak of it within the limit of
a note.
27
The History of Magic
and religious point of view, arc like children swaddled by
men, as we may appreciate by their spleen and dulness.
If religious doctrine is comparable to a nurse's story,
on the understanding that it is ingenious and bene-
ficial morally, it is perfectly true for the child, and the
father would be very foolish to contradict it. Give there-
fore to mothers a monopoly in tales of faerie, in songs
and household solicitudes. Maternity is a type of the
priesthoods, and it is because the Church must be a mother
only that the catholic priest renounces the right of man
and transfers in advance to herself his claim on father-
hood. It must never be forgotten that the papacy is
either nothing or that it is the universal mother. It
may be even that Pope Joan, out of which protestants
have constructed a tale of scandal, is only an ingenious
allegory, and when sovereign pontiffs have ill-used Em-
perors and Kings, it has been Pope Joan trying to beat
her husband, to the great scandal of the Christian world.
So also schisms and heresies have been other conjugal
quarrels ; the Church and Protestantism speak evil one
of another, lament one another, make a show of avoid-
ing and being weary one of another, like spouses living
apart.
It is by the Kabalah, and this alone, that all is ex
plained and reconciled. All other doctrines are vivified
and made fruitful thereby ; it destroys nothing biit, on
on the contrary, gives reason to all that is. So all the
forces of the world are at the service of this one and
supreme science, while the true Kabalist can make use
at his pleasure, without hypocrisy and without falsehood,
of the science possessed by the wise and the zeal of
believers. He is more catholic than M. de Maistre,
more protestant than Luther, more Jewish than the chief
rabbi, and a prophet more than Mahomet. Is he not
above systems and the passions which darken truth }
Can he not at will bring together their scattered rays,
so variously reflected in all the fragments of that broken
28
Introduction
mirror which is universal faith — fragments which are taken
by men for so many opposite beliefs ? There is one being,
one law and one faith, as there is only one race of man —
nsnx "itj'^ n^nx.
On such intellectual and moral heights it will be un-
derstood that the human mind and heart enter into the
deep peace. ** Peace profound, my brethren '* — such was
the master-word of High-Grade Masonry, being the asso-
ciation of Kabalistic initiates.^
The war which the Church has been forced to make
against Magic was necessitated by the profanations of
false Gnostics, but the true science of the Magi is catholic
essentially, basing all its realisation on the hierarchic
principle. Now, the only serious and absolute hierarchy
is found in the Catholic Church, and hence true adepts
have always shewn for it the deepest respect and obedi-
ence. Henry Khunrath alone was a resolute protestant,
but in this he was a German of his period rather than a
mystic citizen of the eternal Kingdom.^
The essence of anti-christianity is exclusion and heresy ;
it is the partition of the body of Christ, according to the
beautiful expression of St. John : Omnis spiritus qui solvit
Christum hie Antichristus est. The reason is that religion
is charity and that there is no charity in anarchy. Magic
had also its anarchists, its makers and adherents of sects,
its thaumaturgists and sorcerers. Our design is to vindi-
1 It was not a master-word but a mode of greeting ; it was neither
Masonic nor Kabalistic ; it was a Rosicrucian formula. It may be added
that : " Peace profound, my brethren " — was answered by ; " Emanuel ;
God is with us." It is a perfect and highly mystical mode of salutation.
* Perhaps the true explanation in respect of Henry Khunrath is that,
seemingly, he was of the Lutheran persuasion as one of the accidents of
his birth, but in the higher consciousness he was, as he could be only,
catholic. As regards the resolute protestantism, 6liphas Ldvi says in his
Ritual of Transcendental Magic that Khunrath " affects Christianity in
expressions and in signs, but it is easy to see that his Christ is the Abraxas,
the luminous pentagram radiating on the astronomical cross, the incar-
nation ii humanity of the sovereign sun celebrated by the Emperor
Julian." See my translation of the Doctrine and Ritual of Transcen-
dental MagiCt p. 257.
29
The History of Magic
cate the legality of the science from the usurpations of
ignorance, fraud and folly ; it is in this respect more
especially that our work will stand to be useful, as it will
be also entirely new. So far the History of Magic has
been presented as annals of a thing prejudged, or as
chronicles — less or more exact — of a sequence in pheno-
mena, seeing that no one believed that Magic belonged
to science. A serious account of this science in its redis-
covery, so to speak, must set forth its developments or
progress. We are walking in open sanctuary instead of
among ruins, and we find that the Holy Places, so long
buried under the debris of four civilisations, have been
preserved more wonderfully than the- mummified cities
which excavation has unearthed, in all their dead beauty
and desolate majesty, beneath the lava of Vesuvius.
Bossuet in his magnificent work has shewn us religion
bound up everywhere with history ; but what would he
have said had he known that a science which, in a sense,
was born with the world, provides an explanation of
primeval dogmas, belonging to the one and universal
religion, in virtue of their combination with the most
incontestable theorems of mathematics and reason ? Dog-
matic Magic is the key of all secrets as yet unfathomed
by the philosophy of history, while Practical Magic alone
opens the Secret Temple of Nature to that power of
human will which is ever limited, yet ever progressive.
We are far from any impious pretence of explaining
the mysteries of religion by means of Magic, but our
intention is to indicate after what manner science is com-
pelled to accept and revere those mysteries.^ It shall be
said no longer that reason must humble itself in the
presence of faith ; on the contrary, it must do honour to
itself by believing, since it is faith which saves reason
^ Eliphas L^vi has said previously {a) that the Church ignores Magic
—for she must either ignore it or perish ; {b) that Magic, as understood
by him, is absolute religion as well as absolute science ; {c) that it should
regenerate all forms of worship.
30
Introduction
from the horrors of the void on the brink of the abyss,
and it is its bond of union with the infinite. Orthodoxy
in religion is respect for the hierarchy as the sole guardian
of unity. Let us therefore not fear to repeat that Magic
is essentially the Science of the Hierarchy, remembering
clearly that, before all things else, it condemns anarchic
doctrines, while it demonstrates, by the very laws of
Nature, that harmony is inseparable both from power and
authority.
The chief attraction of Magic for the great number
of curious persons is that they see therein an exceptional
means for the satisfaction of their passions. The unbe-
liever's horizon is of the same order. The avaricious would
deny that there is any secret of Hermes corresponding
to the transmutation of metals, for otherwise they would
buy it and so enjoy wealth. But they are fools who
believe that such a secret is sold. Of what use would be
money to those who could make gold } That is true, says
the sceptic, but if you, Eliphas L^vi, possessed it, would
you not be richer than we are ? Who has told you that
I am poor ? Have I asked for anything at your hands .?
Where is the sovereign in the world who can boast that
he has acquired from me any secret of science ? Where
is the millionaire whom I have given reason to believe that
I would set my fortune against his .^ When we look at
earthly wealth from beneath it, we may yearn for it as the
sovereign felicity, but it is despised when we consider it
from above and when one realises how little temptation
there can be to recover that which has been dropped as
if it were hot iron.
But apart from this, a young man will exclaim that
if magical secrets were true, he would attain them that
he might be loved by all women. Nothing of the sort ;
a day will come, poor child, when it will be too much to
be loved by one of them, for sensual desire is a dual
orgie, the intoxication of which causes disgust to super-
vene quickly, after which anger and separation follow.
31
The History of Magic
There was once an old idiot who would have liked to
have become a magician in order to upset the world.
But if you were a magician, my hero, you would not be
an imbecile, and before the tribunal of your conscience
you would find no extenuating circumstances, did you
become a criminal.
The Epicurean, on his part, demands the recipes of
Magic, that he may enjoy for ever and suffer nothing at
all. In this case the science itself intervenes and says, as
religion also says: Blessed are those who suffer. But
that is the reason why the Epicurean has lost faith in
religion. " Blessed are those who mourn " — but the
Epicurean scoffs at the promise. Hear now what is said
by experience and by reason. Sufferings test and awaken
generous sentiments ; pleasures promote and fortify base
instincts. Sufferings arm against pleasure ; enjoyment
begets weakness in suffering. Pleasure squanders ; pain
ingarners. Pleasure is man's rock of peril ; the pain of
motherhood is woman's triumph. Pleasure fertilises and
conceives but pain brings forth.^ Woe to him who cannot
and will not suffer ; he shall be overwhelmed by pain.
Nature drives unmercifully those who will not walk ; we are
cast into life as into an open sea : we must swim or drown.
Such are the laws of Nature, as taught by Transcendent
Magic. And now reconsider whether one can become a
magician in order to enjoy everything and suffer nothing.
Yet the world will ask : In such case, what profits Magic }
What would the prophet Balaam have replied to his she-
ass had the patient brute asked him what profits intelli-
gence ? What would Hercules have answered to a pigmy
if he had inquired what profits strength ^ We do not
compare worldly people to pigmies and still less to
Balaam's ass : it would be wanting in politeness and good
taste. We say therefore, with all possible graciousness, to
^ If it be worth while to say so the translation of this passage does
not follow the text, which suggests that the act of conception — on the
female side — involves suffering. The text reads: Cesi le plaisir qui
ficonde^ mats c'esi la douleur qui concoit et enfante.
32
Introduction
such brilliant and amiable people, that for them Magic is
absolutely useless, it being understood further that they
will never take it seriously. Our work is addressed to
souls that toil and think. They will find an explanation
therein of Whatsoever has remained obscure in our Doc-
trine and Ritual. On the pattern of the Great Masters,
we have followed the rational order of sacred numbers
in the plan and division of our works, for which reason
this History of Magic is arranged in seven books, having
seven chapters in each. The first book is dedicated to
the Sources of Magic ; it is the genesis of that science,
and we have provided it with a key in the letter Alephy
expressing Kabalistically the original and primal unity.
The second book contains historical and social formulae
of the magical word in antiquity ; its seal is the letter
Beth, symbolising the duad as an expression of the word
which realises, the special character of the Gnosis and
occultism. The third book is concerned with the reali-
sations of antique science in Christian society. It shews
after what manner, even for science itself, the word takes
flesh. The number three is that of generation, of reali-
sation, and the key of this book is the letter Gimel^ a
hieroglyph of birth. We are introduced in the fourth
book to the civilising power of Magic among barbarous
races, to the natural productions of this science amidst
peoples still in their childhood, to the mysteries of Druids
and their miracles, to the legends of bards, and it is shewn
after what manner these things concurred in the forma-
tion of modern societies, thus preparing a brilliant and
permanent victory for Christianity. The number four
expresses Nature and force, while the letter Daleth,
which stands for it in the Hebrew alphabet, is represented
in that of the Kabalists by an emperor on his throne.
The fifth book is consecrated to the sacerdotal era of the
middle ages, and we are present at the dissensions and
struggles of science, the formation of secret societies,
their unknown achievements, the secret rites of grimoires,
33 c
The History of Magic
the mysteries of the Divine Comedy^ the divisions within
the sanctuary which must lead later on to a glorious
unity. The number five is that of the quintessence,
religion and the priesthood ; its character is the letter He^
represented in the magical alphabet by the symbol of a
high priest. The sixth book exhibits the intervention of
Magic in the work of the Revolution. The number six
is that of antagonism and strife in preparation for uni-
versal synthesis, and the corresponding letter is Vau^
symbol of the creative lingam and the reaper's sickle.
The seventh book is synthetic, containing an exposition
of modern workings and discoveries, new theories on
light and magnetism, the revelation of the great Rosicru-
cian secret, the explanation of mysterious alphabets, the
science of the word and its magical works, in fine, the
summary of the science itself, including an appreciation
of what has been accomplished by contemporaneous
mystics. This book is the complement and the crown
of the work, as the septenary is the crown of numbers,
uniting the triangle of idea to the square of form. Its
corresponding letter is Zain^ and the Kabalistic hiero-
glyphic is a victor mounted on a chariot, drawn by two
sphinxes.^
Far from us be the ridiculous vanity of posing as
a Kabalistic victor ; it is the science alone which should
triumph ; and that which we expose before the intelligent
world, mounted on the cubic chariot and drawn by
sphinxes, is the Word of Light, the Divine Fulfiller of
the Mosaic Kabalah, the human Sun of the Gospel, that
man -God who has come once as Saviour aiid will manifest
soon as Messiah, that is, as definitive and absolute king
^ According to the Zohar^ the \t,\.\.^x Aleph is a sacrament of the unity
which is in God, and it is thereby and therein that man obtains unity.
Beth is the basis of the work of creation, and in a sense also its instru-
ment. Gijnel represents the charity and beneficence which are the help
of poverty, designated by the letter Daleth. The letters He and Vav
are part of the mystery which is contained in the Divine Name — nVT.
The letter Zain is likened to a sharp sword or dagger.
34
Introduction
of temporal Institutions. It is this thought which
animates our courage and sustains our hope. But now
it remains to submit all our conceptions, all our dis-
coveries and all our labours to the infallible judgment
of the hierarchy. To the authorised men of science be
that which belongs to science, but the things which con-
nect with religion are set apart to the Church alone and
to that one hierarchic Church, the preserver of unity,
which has been catholic, apostolic and Roman from the
days of Christ Jesus to our own. To scholars our
discoveries, to bishops our aspirations and beliefs. Woe
to the child who believes himself wiser than his parents,
to the man who acknowledges no masters, to that dreamer
who thinks and prays by himself. Life is an universal
communion and in such communion do we find im-
mortality. He who isolates himself is given over to
death thereby and an eternity of isolation would be
eternal death.
Eliphas \Ayi.
35
BOOK I
THE DERIVATIONS OF MAGIC
BOOK I
THE DERIf^ATIONS OF MAGIC
X— ALEPH
CHAPTER I
FABULOUS SOURCES
The apochryphal Book of Enoch says that there were u^
angels who consented to fall from heaven that they
might have intercourse with the daughters of earth. ^
*' For in those days the sons of men having multiplied,
there were born to them daughters of great beauty. And
when the angels, or sons of heaven, beheld them, they
were filled with desire ; wherefore they said to one
another : ' Come, let us choose wives from among the
race of man, and let us beget children.' Their leader,
Samyasa, answered thereupon and said : * Perchance you
will be wanting in the courage needed to fulfil this
resolution, and then I alone shall be answerable for your
fall.' But they swore that they would in no wise repent
and that they would achieve their whole design. Now
there were 200 who descended on Mount Armon, and
^ The account which follows may be compared with that which is
found, s.v. Apocryphes in Eliphas Levi's Dictio7inairc de Littirature
Chrdtienne^ mentioned in my preface to the present translation. It
describes the legend concerning the faW of certain angels as une asscz
singuHcre hisioire. He refers also to the various extant versions of the
book, and to those in particular which differ from the "primitive"
codex, being {a) that which he uses, and {b) " that which St. Jude cites
in his catholic epistle as an authentic" work, actually composed by the
prophet Enoch, to whom it is attributed.
39
The History of Magic
it was from this time that the mountain received its
designation, which signifies Mount of the Oath. Herein-
after follow the names of those angelic leaders who
descended with this object : Samyasa, chief among all,
Urakabarameel, Azibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azlceel,
Sarakuyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Sam-
saveel, Ertraei, Turel, Jomiael, Arazial. They took
wives, with whom they had intercourse, to whom also
they taught Magic, the art of enchantment and the
diverse properties of roots and trees. Amazarac gave
instruction in all secrets of sorcerers ; Barkaial was the
master of those who study the stars ; Akibeel manifested
signs ; and Azaradel taught the motions of the moon."
This legend of the Kabalistic Book of Enoch is a
variant account of the same profanation of Mysteries
which we meet with under another form of symbolism
in the history of the sin of Adam. Those angels, the
sons of God, of whom Enoch speaks, were initiates of
Magic, and it was this that they communicated to pro-
fane men, using incautious women as their instruments.
They split upon the rock of sense-attraction, becoming
enamoured of the female sex, and the secrets of royalty
and priesthood were extracted from them unawares.
Primitive civilisation collapsed as a consequence, and the
giants, who typified brute force and unbridled appetite,
fought together for the world, which escaped only by
immersion in the waters of the deluge, wherein all traces
of the past were effaced. This deluge symbolised that
universal confusion into which humanity is brought of
necessity when it ignores and does outrage to the har-
monies of Nature.^ There is kinship between the fall
1 The Zohar says that the Ark of Noah was a symbol of the Ark of
the Covenant, that his entrance therein saved the world, and that this
mystery is in analogy with the Supreme Mystery. At this point there
is a sex-implicit throughout the Kabalistic commentary, and the nature
of the "unbridled appetite" which brought about the deluge is identified
with that sin which caused the destruction of Judah's second son, as told
in Genesis c. xxxviii. See ZohaVy Part I., section Toldoth Noah. It is
intimated also that the souls of those who perished in the deluge were
40
THE MAGICAL HEAD OF THE ZOHAR
Facing p. 40
The Derivations of Magic
of Samyasa and that of Adam ; the lure of sense seduced
both ; both profaned the Tree of Knowledge ; and both
were driven far away from the Tree of Life. It is
needless here to discuss the views, or rather the simplicity,
of those who take everything' literally and believe that
knowledge and life were once manifested under the form
of trees ; let us confess rather and only to the deep
meaning of sacred symbols. The Tree of Knowledge
does actually inflict death when its fruit is eaten ; that
fruit is the adornment of this world ; those golden apples
are the glitter of earth.
In the Arsenal Library there is a very curious manu-
script entitled The Book of the Penitence of Adam^ and
herein Kabalistic tradition is presented under the guise
of legend to the following effect : '^ Adam had two sons
— Cain, who signifies brute force, and Abel, the type
of intelligence and mildness. Agreement was impossible
between them ; they perished at each other's hands ; and
their inheritance passed to a third son, named Seth."
Here is the conflict of two opposing forces diverted
to the advantage of a synthetic and united force. **Now
Seth, who was just, was permitted to approach as far
as the entrance of the Earthly Paradise, without being
threatened by the Kerub and his flaming sword." In
other words, Seth represented primeval initiation. *' It
came to pass in this manner tliat Seth beheld the Tree
of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, incorporated together
after such a manner that they formed but a single tree " —
signifying the harmony of science and religion in the
transcendental Kabalah. '* And the angel gave him three
seeds containing the vital power of the said tree." The
to be blotted out, like the remembrance of Amalek. Part I., fol. 2^a.
They will not even be included in the resurrection which shall go before
the Last Judgment. Fol. 683. At the same time the chastisement would
have been suspended had Noah prayed to God like Moses, but the
tradition supposes him to have asked only concerning himself. Zohar^
Part III., fol. i4<^. The Holy Land was not covered by the waters of the
deluge. Part IL, fol. 197^.
41
The History of Magic
reference is here to the Kabalistic triad. " When Adam
died, Seth, in obedience to the directions of the angel,
placed the three seeds in the mouth of his father, as a
token of eternal life. The saplings which sprang up
from these, became the Burning Bush, in the midst of
which God communicated to Moses his Eternal Name —
signifying He Who is and is to come. Moses plucked
a triple branch of the sacred bush and used it as his
miraculous wand. Although separated from its root,
the branch continued to live and blossom, and it was
subsequently preserved in the Ark/ King David planted
the branch on Mount Zion, and Solomon took wood
from each section of the triple trunk to make the two
pillars, Jachin and BoaZy which were placed at the
entrance of the Temple. They were covered with
bronze, and the third section was Jnserted at the thres-
hold of the chief gate. It was a talisman' which hindered
things unclean from enterii.g within. But certain nefari-
ous Levites removed during the night this obstacle to
their unholy freedom and cast it, loaded with stones,
at the bottom of the Temple reservoir. From this time
forward an angel of God troubled the waters of the pool,
imparting to them a miraculous value, so that men might
be distracted from seeking the tree of Solomon in its
depths. In the days of Jesus Christ the pool was cleansed
and the Jews, finding the beam of wood, which in their
eyes seemed useless, carried the latter outside the town and
threw it across the brook Cedron. It was over this bridge
that our Saviour passed after his arrest at night in the
Garden of Olives. His executioners ca^t him from it
into the water; and then in their haste to prepare the
instrument-in-chief of His passion, they took the beam
* It was the Rod of Aaron, not that of Moses, which, according to
Heb. ix. 4, was placed in the Ark of the Covenant, together with the
Tables of the Law and the Pot of Manna. It is said, however, most
clearly in i Kings, viii. 9, that " there was nothing in the ark save the
two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb."
42
The Derivations of Magic
with them, which was made of three kinds of wood, and
formed the cross therewith." ^
This allegory embodies all the great traditions of the
Kabalah and the secret Christian doctrine of St. John,
which is now utterly unknown. It follows that Seth,
Moses, David, Solomon and Christ obtained from the
same Kabalistic Tree their royal sceptres and pontifical
crooks. We can understand in this manner why the
Christ was adored in His manger by the Magi. Let us
recur, however, to the Book of Enoch, as greater authority
attaches to it than can be attributed to an unknown
manuscript ; the former is cited in the New Testament
by the Apostle St. Jude. Tradition refers the invention
of letters to Enoch, and it is to him that we must
therefore trace back the teachings embodied in the Sepher
Tetzirah, which is the elementary work of the Kabalah,
its compiler — according to the Rabbins — being the patri- ^
arch Abraham, as the heir of the secrets of Enoch and ^-
as the father of initiation in Israel. Enoch would -
seem in this manner to be identical with the Egyptian
Hermes Trismcgistus, while the famous Book of Thoth^
written throughout in hieroglyphics and in numbers,
would be that occult Bible, anterior to the book of
Moses and full of mysteries, to which the initiated ^
William Postel alludes so frequently throughout his "
works, under the title of the Genesis of Enoch}
^ Whatever the date ta which the Book of the Penitence oj Adam may
be referable, it represents one form of a legend which was spread widely
in the Middle Ages. The Gospel of Nicodemus seems to have instituted
the first analogy between the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of the
Cross. "All ye who have died through the wood which this man" —
Adam — " hath touched : all of you I will make alive again by the wood
of the cross." The legend of the triple branch, under a strange trans-
formation, reappears in that chronicle of the Holy Graal which has been
ascribed to the authorship of Walter Map. There is no end to the
stories which represent Christ dying upon a tree which was a cutting
from the Tree of Knowledge. This is how the Tree of Knowledge
becomes the Tree of Life in Christian legend.
^ The Clavis Abscondiiorum a Constitutione Mundi, which is the
chief work of Postel, outside his translation of the Sepher Yetzirah,
affirms that Enoch was born at the time when Christ the Mediator would
43
T*he History of Magic
The Bible says that Enoch did not die, but that God
translated him from one life to another. He is to
return and confound Anti-Christ at the end of time,
when he will be one of the last martyrs, or witnesses
of truth, mentioned in the Apocalypse of St. John.
That which is said of Enoch in this respect has been
said also of all the great initiators recorded in Kabalism.
St. John himself, according to the primitive Christians,
was saved from death, and it was long thought that he
could be seen breathing in his tomb.^ The explanation
is that the absolute science of life preserves against death,
as the instinct of the people has always led them to
'^' divine. However this may be, the extant memorials
of Enoch are contained in two books, one of which is
hieroglyphic and the other of the nature of allegory.
The first comprises the hieratic keys of initiation, while
the second is the history of a great profanation which
caused the destruction of the world and the reign of
chaos after that of the giants.
St. Methodius, a bishop in the early days of Chris-
tianity, whose writings are found in the collection of the
Fathers of the Church, has left a prophetic Apocalypse
which unfolds the world's history in a series of visions.
It is not included among the saint's acknowledged writ-
ings, but it was preserved by the Gnostics and has been
printed in the Liber Mirabilis under the assumed name
of Bermechobus, which illiterate compositors have sub-
stituted in place of Bea-Methodius, an abbreviation of
^eaius Methodius.'^ This book corresponds in several
respects with the allegorical treatise entitled The^Penitence
have been manifested in the flesh as the incarnation of perfect Virtue,
supposing that man had remained in his first estate. There is no refer-
ence to a Getiesis of Enoch.
^ Hie intrat vivus fovea^ii — he, being still ah've, enters the tomb,
says Adam of St. Victor in his third Sequence for Dec. 27.
- There were two canonised bishops bearing the name of Methodius
at widely different periods, and as both were writers it is an open ques-
tion to which of them the reference is intended. It is probably to
Methodius of Olympus, who was martyred about 311. Methodius, the
Patriarch of Constantinople, died in 846. There is not the least reason
44
The Derivations of Magic
^^fAdam. It tells how Seth migrated eastward with his
family and so reached a mountain in the vicinity of the
Earthly Paradise. This was the country of initiates,
whilst the posterity of Cain invented a spurious or de-
based Magic in India, the land of fratricide, and put
witchcraft into the hands of the reckless.
St. Methodius predicts in a later place the struggles
and successive predominance of the Ishmaelites, being the
name given in his apocalypse to those who conquered the
Romans ; of the Franks, who overcame the Ishmaelites ;
and then of a great race from the North whose invasion
will precede the personal reign of Anti-Christ. An
universal kingdom will be founded thereafter and will
fall into the hands of a French prince, after which there
will be the reign of justice for a long period of years.
We are not concerned with prophecy in the present place,
but it is desirable to note the distinction between good
and evil Magic, between the Sanctuary of the Sons of
Seth and the profanation of science by the descendants of
Cain.^ Transcendental knowledge, as a fact, is reserved
for those who are masters of their passions, and virgin
Nature does not deliver the keys of her nuptial chamber
to adulterers.
There are two classes — freemen and slaves ; man is
born in the bondage of his passions, but he can reach
emancipation through intelligence. Between those who
are free already and those who as yet are not there is
no equality possible. The part of reason is to rule and
of instinct to obey. On the other hand, if you impose
on the blind the office of leading the blind, both will end
to suppose that the Apocalypse under the name of Bermechobus was the
work of either.
* Compare Lopukhin's Quelques Traits de PJ^glise InUrieure^ where
the sanctuary which was inaugurated by Adam is connected more espe-
cially with Abel, and was presumably maintained afterwards by Seth. In
opposition thereto was the Church of Cain, which was anti-Christian from
its beginning. See my introduction to Mr. Nicholson's translation,
pp. 6, 7, and the text, p. 59 — Some Characteristics of the Interior Churchy
1912.
45
v./
The History of Magic
in the abyss. We should never forget that liberty does
not consist in the licence of passion emancipated from
law, which licence would prove the most hideous of
tyrannies ; liberation consists in willing obedience to law ;
it is the right to do one's duty, and only just men can
be called free. Now, those who are in liberation should
govern those who are in bondage, and slaves are called
to be released, not from the government of the free but
from the yoke of brutal passions, as a consequence of
which they cannot exist without masters.
Confess with us now for a moment to the truth of the
transcendental sciences. Suppose that there does actually
exist a force which can be mastered and by which the
miracles of Nature are made subservient to the will of
man. Tell us, in such case, whether the secrets of wealth
and the bonds of sympathy can be entrusted to brutal
greed; the art of fascination to libertines ; the supremacy
over other wills to those who cannot attain the govern-
ment of their proper selves. It is terrifying to reflect
upon the disorders which would follow from such a
profanation; some cataclysm is needed to eflface the
crimes of earth when all are steeped in slime and blood.
Now, it is this state of things that is indicated by the
allegorical history of the fall of the angels, according to
(The Book of Enoch ; it is this which was the sin of Adam,
and hereof are its fatal consequences. Of such also was
the Deluge and its wreckage ; of such at a later period
the malediction of Canaan. The revelation of occult
secrets is typified by the insolence of that son who exposes
his fathers nakedness. The intoxication of Noah is a
lesson for the priesthood of all ages. Woe to those who
lay bare the secret of divine generation to the impure
gaze of the crowd. Keep the sanctuary shut, all ye who
would spare your sleeping father the mockery of the
imitators of Ham.^
^ According to the Zohar^ the intoxication of Noah contains a
mystery of wisdom. He was really sounding the depths of that sin
46
The Derivations of Magic
Such is the tradition of the children of Seth respect-
ing the laws of the human hierarchy ; but the latter were
not acknowledged by the family of Cain. The Cainites
of India invented a genesis to consecrate the oppression
of the strong and to perpetuate the ignorance of the
weak. Initiation became an exclusive privilege of the
high castes, and entire races of humanity were doomed
to unending servitude on the pretence of inferior birth :
they issued, as it was said, from the feet or knees of
Brahma. Now, Nature engenders neither slaves nor
kings, but all men indifferently are born to labour.
He who pretends that man is perfect at birth but is
degraded and perverted by society is the wildest of
anarchists, though he may be the most poetic of maniacs.
But in vain was Jean Jacques a sentimentalist and
dreamer ; his deep implicit of misanthropy, when expli-
cated by the logic of fanatical partisans, bore fruits in
hate and destruction. The consistent architects of the
Utopia imagined by the susceptible philosopher of
Geneva were Robespierre and Marat.
Society is no abstract personality that can be ren-
dered responsible separately for the stubbornness of man ;
society is the association of men ; it is defective by
reason of their vices and sublime in respect of their
virtues; but in itself it is holy, like the religion which
is bound up inseparably therewith. Is not religion, as
a fact, an association of the highest aspirations and the
most generous endeavours.? After this manner does
the blasphemy of anti-social equality and of right in the
teeth of duty give answer to the lie about castes privi-
leged by Nature ; Christianity alone has solved the
problem by assigning supremacy to self-sacrifice and
by proclaiming him as the greatest who offers up his
which was the downfall of the first man, and his object was to find a
remedy. In this he failed, and " was drunken," seeking to lay bare the
divine essence, without the intellectual power to explore it. Section
Toldoth Noah.
47
The History of Magic
pride for society and his appetites for the sake of the
law.
Though they were the depositaries of the tradition
of Seth, the Jews did not preserve it in all its purity,
and were infected by the unjust ambitions of the
posterity of Cain. Believing that they were a chosen
people, they deemed that God had allotted them truth
as a patrimony rather than as a security held in trust
for humanity at large.^ Side by side with the sublime
traditions of the Sepher Tetzirah, we meet with very
curious revelations among the Talmudists. For example,
they do not shrink from ascribing the idolatry of the
Gentiles to the patriarch Abraham himself; they say
that to the Israelites he bequeathed his inheritance,
namely, the knowledge of the true Divine Names ; in
a word, the Kabalah was the lawful and hereditary
property of Isaac ; but the patriarch gave, as they tell
us, certain presents to the children of his concubines ;
and by such presents they understand veiled dogmas
u and cryptic names, which became materialised speedily,
and were transformed into idols.^ False religions and
their absurd mysteries, oriental superstitions, with all
their horrible sacrifices — what a gift from a father to
his disowned family. Was it not sufficient to drive
Hagar with her son into the desert? To their one
loaf and their pitcher of water must he add the burden
of falsehood, as a torment and poison in their exile ?
The glory of Christianity is that it called all men
to truth, without distinction of races and castes, though
* The Sepher Ha Zohar affirms in several places that the Law was
offered to the Gentiles, and was by them refused.
* The authority for this statement is wanting. The Zohar dwells on
Genesis xxi. 9 : " And Sarah saw the son of Hagar," &c., implying that
she did not acknowledge him as the son of Abraham, but of the Egyptian
only. The Patriarch, however, regarded him as his own son. Sarah's
desire to expel them is justified on the ground that she had seen Ishmael
worshipping the stars of heaven. Sttt Zohar, Part I., fol. 118. There is
no allusion to the alleged gifts of the father, the scripture making it
evident abundantly that the bread and bottle of water are for once to be
understood literally.
48
The Derivations of Magic
not without distinction in respect of intelligence and of
virtue. "Cast not your pearls before swine," said the
Divine Founder of Christianity, "lest treading them
under foot, they turn and rend you." The Apocalypse
or Revelation of St. John, which comprises all the
Kabalistic secrets concerning the doctrine of Chf ist Jesus,
is a book no less obscure than the Zohar, It is written
hieroglyphically in the language of numbers and images,
and the Apostle appeals frequently to the knowledge
of initiates. ** Let him understand who has knowledge
—let him who understands compute" — he says fre-
quently, after reciting an allegory or giving a mystic
number. St. John, the beloved disciple and depositary
of all the secrets of the Saviour, did not therefore write
to be understood by the multitude.
The Sepher Tetzirah^ the Zohar and the Apocalypse
zrt the masterpieces of occultism ; they contain more
meanings than words ; their method of expression is
figurative, like poetry, and exact, like numerical for-
mulae. The Apocalypse summarises, completes and sur-
passes all the science of Abraham and Solomon, as we
will prove by explaining the Keys of the transcendent
Kabalah.
It is not less astonishing to observe at the beginning
of the Zohar^ the profundity of its notions and the
sublime simplicity of its images. It is said as follows :
" The science of equilibrium is the key of occult science.
Unbalanced forces perish in the void. So passed the
kings of the elder world, the princes of the giants.
* Even at the period of Eliphas L^vi, it did not require a rabbinical
scholar or a knowledge of Aramaic to prevent any fairly informed person
from suggesting that the Book of Concealed Mystery^ being the text here
referred to, is the beginning of the Zohar. It follows the Commentary
on Exodus^ about midway in the whole collection, which covers the entire
Pentateuch. It so happens that the little tract in question is the first of
three sections rendered into Latin by Rosenroth, and this must have
deceived Levi, as a consequence of utterly careless reading. There was
plenty of opportunity for correction in the Kabbala Denudata^ and so
also in La Kabbale — an interesting but very imperfect study by Adolphe
Franck, which appeared in 1843.
49 D
The History of Magic
They have fallen like trees without roots, and their
place is found no more. Through the conflict of
unbalanced forces, the devastated earth was void and
formless, until the Spirit of God made for itself a place
in heaven and reduced the mass of waters. All the
aspirations of Nature were directed then towards unity
of form, towards the living synthesis of equilibrated
forces ; the face of God, crowned with light, rose over
the vast sea and was reflected in the waters thereof.
His two eyes were manifested, radiating with splendour,
darting two beams of light which crossed with those
of the reflection. The brow of God and His eyes
formed a triangle in heaven, and its reflection formed
a second triangle in the waters. So was revealed the
number six, being that of universal creation."
The text, which would be unintelligible in a literal
version, is translated here by way of interpretation. The
author makes it plain that the human form which he
ascribes to Deity is only an image of his meaning and
that God is beyond expression by human thought or
representation by any figure. Pascal said that God is a
circle, of which the centre is everywhere and the circum-
ference nowhere. But how is one to imagine a circle
apart from its circumference } The Zohar adopts the
antithesis of this paradoxical image and in respect of
the circle of Pascal would say rather that the circum-
ference is everywhere, while that which is nowhere is
the centre. It is however to a balance and not to a circle
that it compares the universal equilibrium of things.^ It
^ There is no real analogy between the image attributed to Pascal and
that of the Zoharic Book of Concealment. I have not verified the refer-
ence to Pascal, as the opportunity is not given by Levi, but 1 have ex-
plained elsewhere that the idea was probably drawn from S. Bonaventura,
who speaks of that sphcera intelligibiliSy cujus centrum est ubique et cir-
cumferentia nusquam. See Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum. I have in-
ferred that S. Bonaventura himself derived from a Hermetic book. As
regards the symbolism of the Balance, the Book of Concealed Mystery
says {a) that m creating the world, God weighed in the Balance what
had not been weighed previously, {b) that the Balance was suspended
in a region where before there was no Balance, (r) that it served for
50
THE GREAT KABALISTIC SYMBOL OF THE ZOHAR
Facing p. 50
The Derivations of Magic
affirms that equilibrium is everywhere and so also is that
central point where the balance hangs in suspension. We
find that the Zohar is thus more forcible and more pro-
found than Pascal.
Its author continues as follows his sublime dream.
That synthesis of the word, formulated by the human
figure, ascended slowly and emerged from the water, like
the sun in its rising. When the eyes appeared, light was
made ; when the mouth was manifested, there was the
creation of spirits and the word passed into expression.
The entire head was revealed, and this completed the first
da/ of creation. The shoulders, the arms, the breast arose,
and t hereupon work began. With one hand the Divine
Image put back the sea, while with the other it raised up
continents and mountains. The Image grew and grew ;
the generative organs appeared, and all beings began to
increase and multiply. The form stood at length erect,
having one foot upon the earth and one upon the waters.
Beholding itself at full length in the ocean of creation, it
breathed on its own reflection and called its likeness into
life. It said : Let us make man — and thus man was
made. There is nothing so beautiful in the masterpiece
of any poet as this vision of creation accomplished by the
prototype of humanity. Hereby is man but the shadow
of a shadow, and yet he is the image of divine power.
He also can stretch forth his hands from East to West ;
to him is the earth given as a dominion. Such is Adam
Kadmon, the primordial Adam of the Kabalists. Such
is the sense in which he is depicted as a giant ; and this
is why Swedenborg, haunted in his dreams by reminis-
cences of the Kabalah, says that entire creation is only
a titanic man and that we are made in the image of the
universe.
The Zohar is a genesis of light ; the Sepher Tetzirah
bodies as well as souls, for beings then in existence and for those who
would exist subsequently. These are the only references to this subject
found in the tract.
The History of Magic
is a ladder of truth. Therein are expounded the two-
and-thirty absolute symbols of speech — being numbers
and letters. Each letter produces a number, an idea and
a form, so that mathematics are applicable to forms and
ideas, even as to numbers, in virtue of an exact pro-
portion and a perfect correspondence. By the science
of the Sepher Tetzirah^ the human mind is rooted in
truth and in reason ; it accounts for all progress pos-
sible to intelligence by means of the evolution of num-
bers. Thus does the Zohar represent absolute truth,
while the Sepher Tetzirah furnishes the method of its
acquisition, its discernment and application.
52
CHAPTER II
MAGIC OF THE MAGI
It is within probability that Zoroaster is a symbolical
name, like that of Thoth or Hermes. According to
Eudoxus and Aristotle, he flourished 6000 years before
the birth of Plato, but others say that he antedated the
siege of Troy . by about 500 years. He is sometimes
represented as a king of the Bactrians, but the exist-
ence of two or three distinct Zoroasters is also one of
the speculations.^ Eudoxus and Aristotle alone would
seem to have realised that his personality was magical,
and this is why they have placed the Kabalistic epoch
of an entire world between the birth of his doctrine
and the theurgic reign of Platonic philosophy. As a
fact, there are two Zoroasters, that is to say, two ex-
pounders of mysteries, one being the son of Ormuzd
and the founder of an enlightened instruction, the other
being the son of Ahriman and the author of a profana-
tory unveiling of truth. Zoroaster is the incarnate word
of the Chaldeans, the Medes and the Persians ; his legend
reads like a prophecy concerning that of Christ, and
hence it must be assumed that he had also his Anti-
Christ, in accordance with the magical law of universal
equilibrium.
To the false Zoroaster must be referred the cultus
of material fire and that impious doctrine of divine
^ As such it is old, ard a monograph on the subject is included by
Jacob Bryant in his Analysis of Antient Mythology^ vol. ii. p. 38 et seq.
Following the authorities of his period, and especially Huetius, he says
that " they have supposed a Zoroaster, wherever there was a Zoroastrian :
that is, wherever the religion of the Magi was adopted, or revived." The
two Zoroasters of Ldvi represent two principles of religious philosophy.
53
The History of Magic
dualism which produced at a later period the monstrous
Gnosis of Manes and the false principles of spurious
Masonry. The Zoroaster in question was the father of
that materialised Magic which led to the massacre of the
Magi and brought their true doctrine at first into pro-
scription and then oblivion. Ever inspired by the spirit
of truth, the Church was compelled to condemn — under
the names of Magic, Manicheanism, Illuminism and
Masonry — all that was in kinship, remote or approxi-
mate, with the primitive profanation of the mysteries.
One signal example is the history of the Knights
Templar, which has been misunderstood to this day.
The doctrines of the true Zoroaster are identical with
those of pure Kabalism, and his conceptions of divinity
differ in no wise from those of the fathers of the Church.
It is the names only that vary ; for example, the triad of
Zoroaster is the Trinity of Christian teaching, and when
he postulates that Triad as subsisting without diminution
or division in each of its units, he is expressing in another
manner that which is understood by our theologians as
the circumincession of the Divine Persons. In his multi-
plication of the Triad by itself, Zoroaster arrives at the
absolute reason of the number 9 and the universal key
of all numbers and forms. But those whom we term
the three Divine Persons, are called the three depths by
Zoroaster. The first, or that of the Father, is the source
of faith ; the second, being that of the Word, is the well
of truth ; while the third, or creative action, is the font of
love. To check what is here advanced, the reader may
consult the commentary of Psellus on the doctrine of
the ancient Assyrians : it may be found in the work
of Franciscus Patricius on Philosophical Magic^ p. 24 of
the Hamburg edition, which appeared in 1593.
Zoroaster established the celestial hierarchy and all
the harmonies of Nature on his scale of nine degrees.
He explains by means of the triad whatsoever emanates
from the idea and by the tetrad all that belongs to form,
54
The Derivations of Magic
thus arriving at the number 7 as the type of creation.
Here ends the first initiation and the scholastic hypotheses
begin ; numbers are personified and ideas pass into
emblems, which at a later period become idols. The
Synoches, the Teletarchae and the Fathers, ministers of
the triple Hecate ; the three Amilictes and the threefold
visage of Hypezocos — all these intervene ; the angels
follow in their order, the demons and lastly human souls.
The stars are images and reflections of intellectual splen-
dours ; the material sun is an emblem of the sun of truth,
which itself is a shadow of that first source whence all
glory springs. This is why the disciples of Zoroaster
saluted the rising day and so passed as sun-worshippers
among barbarians.
Such were the doctrines of the Magi, but they were
the possessors in addition of secrets which gave them
mastery over the occult powers of Nature. The sum of
these secrets might be termed transcendental pyrotechny,
for it was intimately related to the deep knowledge of
fire and its ruling. It is certain that the Magi were not
only familiar with electricity but were able to generate
and direct it in ways that are now unknown. Numa,
who studied their rites and was initiated into their myste-
ries, possessed, according to Lucius Pison, the art of
producing and controlling the lightning. This sacerdotal
secret, which the Roman initiator would have reserved to
the kings of Rome, was lost by TuUus Hostilius, who
mismanaged the electrical discharge and was destroyed.
Pliny relates these facts on the authority of an ancient
Etruscan tradition and mentions that Numa directed his
battery with success against a monster named Volta,
which was ravaging the district about Rome. In reading
this story, one is almost tempted to think that Volta,
the discoverer, is himself a myth and that the name of
Voltaic piles goes back to the days of Numa.
All Assyrian symbols connect with this science of
fire, which was the great secret of the Magi ; on every
55
The History of Magic
side we meet with the enchanter who slays the lion and
controls the serpents. That lion is the celestial fire,
while the serpents are the electric and magnetic currents
of the earth. To this same great secret of the Magi
are referable all marvels of Hermetic Magic, the extant
traditions of which still bear witness that the mystery of
the Great Work consists in the ruling of fire.
The learned Patricius published in his Philosophical
Magic the Oracles of Zoroaster, collected from the works
of Platonic writers — from Proclus on Theurgy, from the
commentaries on the Parmenides, commentaries of Her-
mias on the Phcedrus and from the notes of Olympio-
dorus on the Philebos and Phaidon} These Oracles are
firstly a clear and precise formulation of the doctrine
here stated and secondly the prescriptions of magical
ritual expressed in such terms as follow.
Demons and Sacrifices
We are taught by induction from Nature that there
are incorporeal daemons and that the germs of evil which
exist in matter turn to the common good and utility.
But these are mysteries which must be buried in the
recesses of thought, -.For ever agitated and ever leaping
in the atmosphere, the fire can assume a configuration
like that of bodies. Let us go further and affirm the
existence of a fire which abounds in images and reflec-
tions. Term it, if you will, a superabundant light which
radiates, which speaks, which goes back into itself. It is
the flaming courser of light, or rather it is the stalwart
child who overcomes and breaks in that heavenly steed.
Picture him as vested in flame and emblazoned with gold,
or think of him naked as love and bearing the arrows of
* An English translation of the Chaldaean Oracles by Thomas Taylor,
the Platonist, claims to have added fifty oracles and fragments not
included in the collection of Fabricius. Mr. Mead says that the subject
was never treated scientifically till the appearance of J Kroll's De Ora-
cults Chaldaicis at Breslau, in 1 894.
56
The Derivations of Magic
Eros. But if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou wilt
combine all these emblems under the form of the lion.
Thereafter, when things are no longer visible, when the
Vault of Heaven and the expanse of the universe have
dissolved, when the stars have ceased to shine and the
lamp of the moon is veiled, when the earth trembles
and the lightning plays around it, invoke not the visible
phantom of Nature's soul, for thou must in no wise
behold it until thy body has been purified by the holy
ordeals. Enervators of souls, which they distract from
sacred occupations, the dog-faced demons issue from the
confines of matter and expose to mortal eyes the sem-
blances of illusory bodies. Labour round the circles
described by the rhombus of Hecate. Change thou
nothing in the barbarous names of evocation, for they
are pantheistic titles of God ; they are magnetised by the
devotion of multitudes and their power is ineffable.
When after all the phantoms thou shalt behold the shin-
ing of that incorporeal fire, that sacred fire the darts of
which penetrate in every direction through the depths of
the world — hearken to the words of the fire.^
These astonishing sentences, which are taken from
the Latin of Patricius, embody the secrets of magnetism
and of things far deeper, which it has not entered into
the heart of people like Du Potet and Mesmer to con-
ceive. We find {a) the Astral Light described perfectly,
together with its power of producing fluidic forms, of
reflecting language and echoing the voice ; {V) the will
of the adept signified by the stalwart child mounted on a
white horse — a symbol met with in an ancient Tarot card
^ It must be understood that this summary or digest is an exceedingly
free rendering, and it seems scarcely in accordance with the text on which
Eliphas Levi worked. Following the text of Kroll, Mr. Mead translates
the first lines as follows : " Nature persuades us that the Daimones are
pure, and things that grow from evil matter useful and good." The last
lines are rendered : " But when thou dost behold the very sacred Fire
with dancing radiance flashing formless through the depths of the whole
world, then hearken to the Voice of Fire."
57
The History of Magic
preserved in the BiblioMque Nationale;^ (c) the dangers
of hallucination arising from misdirected magical works ;
{d) the raison d'etre of enchantments accomplished by the
use of barbarous names and words ; (^) the magnetic
instrument termed rhomhos^ which is comparable to a
child's humming top; (/) the term of magical practice,
which is the stilling of imagination and of the senses into
a state of complete somnambulism and perfect lucidity.'
It follows from this revelation of the ancient world
that clairvoyant extasis is a voluntary and immediate ap-
plication of the soul to the universal fire, or rather to
that light — abounding in images — which radiates, which
speaks and circulates about all objects and every sphere
of the universe. This application is operated by the
persistence of will liberated from the senses and fortified
by a succession of tests. Herein consisted the beginning
of magical initiation. Having attained the power of
direct reading in the light, the adept became a seer or
prophet ; then, having established communication be-
tween this light and his own will, he learned to direct
the former, even as the head of an arrow is set in a
certain direction. He communicated at his pleasure
either strife or peace to the souls of others ; he estab-
lished intercourse at a distance with those fellow-adepts
^ See my Key to the Taroty 1910, p. 32, and the cards which accom-
pany this handbook. See also my Pictorial Key to the Taroty 191 1,
pp. 144-147.
* One of the Chaldaean Oracles has the following counsel : " Labour
thou around the Strophalos of Hecate," which Mr. G. R. S. Mead tran-
slates : " Be active (or operative) round the Hecatic spinning thing."
He adds by way of commentary that Strophalos may sometimes mean a
top. " In the Mysteries tops were included among the playthings of
the young Bacchus, or lacchus. They represented . . . the fixed stars
(humming tops) and planets (whipping tops)." — The Chaldcean Oracles ^
vol. ii. pp. 17, 18.
' Accepting this definition of the term ot occult research, we can
discern after what manner it differs from the mystic term. The one, by
this hypothesis, is lucidity obtained in artificial sleep which stills the
senses, and the other is Divine Realisation in the spirit after the images
of material things and of the mind- world have been cast out, so that the
sanctified man is alone with God in the stillness.
58
The Derivations of Magic
who were his peers ; and, in fine, he availed himself of
that force which is represented by the celestial lion.
Herein lies the meaning of those great Assyrian figures
which hold vanquished lions in their arms. The Astral
Light is otherwise represented by gigantic sphinxes, having
the bodies of lions and the heads of Magi. Considered
as an instrument made subject to magical power, the
Astral Light is that golden sword of Mithra used in his
immolation of the sacred bull. And it is the arrow of
Phoebus which pierced the serpent Python.
Let us now reconstruct in thought the great metro-
politan cities of Assyria, Babylon and Nineveh ; let us
restore to their proper place the granite colossi ; let us
formulate the massive temples, held up by elephants and
sphinxes ; let us raise once more those obelisks from
which dragons look down with shining eyes and wings
outspread. Temples and palaces tower above these
wondrous piles. For ever concealed, but manifested also
for ever by the fact of their miracles, the priesthood and
the royalty, like visible divinities of earth, abide therein.
The temple is surrounded with clouds or glows with
supernatural brilliance at the will of the priests ; now it
is dark in the daylight and again the night ic enlightened ;
the lamps of the temple spring of themselves into flame ;
the gods are radiant ; the thunders roll ; and woe to that
impious person who may have invoked on his own head
the malediction of initiates. The temples protect the
palaces and the king's retainers do battle for the religion
of the Magi. The monarch himself is sacred ; he is a
god on earth ; the people lie prone as he passes ; and
the maniac who would attempt to cross the threshold of
his palace falls dead immediately, by the intervention of
an invisible hand, and without stroke of mace or sword.
He is slain as if by the bolt, blasted by fire from heaven.
What religion and what power. How mighty are the
shadows of Nimrod, of Belus, of Semiramis. What can
surpass these almost fabulous cities, where such mighty
59
The History of Magic
royalties were enthroned — these capitals of giants, capitals
of magicians, of personalities identified by tradition with
angels and still termed sons of God or princes of heaven.
What mysteries have been put to sleep in these sepulchres
of past nations ; and are we better than children when
we exalt our enlightenment and our progress, without
recalling these startling memorials ?
In his work on Magic,^ M. Du Potet affirms, with
a certain timidity, that it is possible to overwhelm a
living being by a current of magnetic fluid. Magical
power extends beyond this limit, but it is not confined
within the measures of the putative magnetic fluid. The
Astral Light as a whole, that element of electricity and
of lightning, can be placed at the disposition of hun;ian
will. What must be done, however, to acquire this
formidable power ? Zoroaster ha^ just told us ; we must
know those mysterious laws of equilibrium which sub-
jugate the very powers of evil to the empire of good.
We must have purified our bodies by sacred trials, must
have conquered the phantoms of hallucination and taken
hold bodily of the light, imitating Jacob in his struggle
with the angel. We must have vanquished those fantastic
dogs which howl in the world of dreams. In a word,
and to use the forcible expression of the Oracle, we must
have heard the light speak. We are then its masters and
can direct it, as Numa did, against the enemies of the
Holy Mysteries. But if in the absence of perfect purity
and if under the government of some animal passion, by
which we are still subjected to the fatalities of tempest-
uous life, we proceed to this kind of work, the fire
which we kindle will consume ourselves ; we shall fall
victims to the serpent which we unloose and shall perish
like Tullus Hostilius.
^ This was La Magie De'voilee^ which was circulated in great secrecy.
Later on, and probably after the decease of the author, it appeared in
the ordinary way, and in 1886 an English translation was announced
under the editorship of Mr. J. S. Farmer, but I believe that it was never
published.
60
The Derivations of Magic
It is not in conformity with the laws of Nature for
man to be devoured by wild beasts. God has armed
him with the power of resistance ; his eyes can fascinate
them, his voice restrain, his sign bring them to a pause.
We know indeed, as a literal fact, that the most savage
animals quail before a steady human glance and seem to
tremble at the human voice. The explanation is that
they are paralysed and awe-stricken by projections of the
Astral Light. When Daniel was accused of imposture
and false Magic, both he and his accusers were subjected
by the king of Babylon to an ordeal of lions. Such
beasts attack those only who fear them or of whom they
are themselves afraid. It is utterly certain that the tiger
will recede before the magnetic glance of a brave man,
although the latter may be disarmed.
The Magi utilised this power and the kings of
Assyria kept tigers, leopards and lions in their gardens,
in a state of docility. Others were reserved in vaults
beneath the temples for use in the ordeals of initiation.
The symbolic bas-reliefs are the proof; they depict trials
of strength between men and animals, and the adept,
clothed in his priestly garb, controls the brutes by a
glance of his eye and stays them with his hand. When
such animals are depicted in one of the forms ascribed to
the sph ^x, they are doubtless symbolical, but in other
representaclons the brute is of the natural order, and then
the struggle seems to illustrate a theory of actual en-
chantment.
Magic is a science ; to abuse is to lose it, and it is
also to destroy oneself. The kings and priests of the
Assyrian world were too great to be free from this
danger, if ever they fell ; as a fact, pride did come upon
them and they did therefore fall. The great magical
epoch of Chaldea is anterior to the reigns of Semiramis
and Ninus. At this time religion had begun already to
materialise and idolatry to prevail. The cultus of
Astarte succeeded that of the heavenly Venus and
6i
The History of Magic
royalty arrogated to itself divine attributes under the
names of Baal and of Bel, or Belus. Semiramis made
religion subservient to politics and conquests, replacing
the old mysterious temples by ostentatious and ill-
advised monuments. This notwithstanding, the magical
idea continued to prevail in art and science, sealing the
constructions of that epoch with the characteristics of
inimitable power and grandeur. The palace of Semi-
ramis was a building synthesis of entire Zoroastrian
dogma, and we shall recur to it in explaining the sym-
bolism of those seven masterpieces of antiquity which are
called the wonders of the world.
The priesthood became secondary to the empire as
the result of an attempt to materialise its own power.
The fall of the one was bound to involve the other,
and it came to pass under the effeminate Sard ana palus.
This prince, abandoned to luxury and indolence, reduced
the science of the Magi to the level of one of his
courtesans. What purpose did' marvels serve if they
failed in ministration to pleasure } Compel, O en-
chanters, compel the winter to produce roses ; double
the savour of wine ; apply your power over the light
to make the beauty of women shine like that of divini-
ties. The Magi obeyed and the king passed from
intoxication to intoxication. But it came about that
war was declared and that the enemy was already on
the march. That enemy might signify little to the
sybarite steeped in his pleasures. But it was ruin, it
was infamy, it was death. Now Sardanapalus did not
fear death, since for him it was an endless sleep, and
he knew how to avoid the toils and humiliations of
servitude. The last night came ; the victor was already
upon the threshold ; the city could stand out no longer ;
the kingdom of Assyria must end on the morrow. The
palace of Sardanapalus was illuminated and blazed with
such splendour that it lightened all the consternated
city. Amidst piles of precious stuiFs, amidst jewels and
62
The Derivations of Magic
golden vessels, the king held his final orgie. His
women, his favourites, his accomplices, his degenerate
priests surrounded him ; the riot of drunkenness mingled
with the music of a thousand instruments ; the tame
lions roared ; and a smoke of perfumes, going up from
the vaults of the palace, enveloped the whole edifice
in a heavy cloud. But tongues of fire began to pene-
trate the cedar panelling ; the frenzied songs were
replaced by cries of terror and groans of agony. The
magic which, in the hands of its degraded adepts, could
not safeguard the empire of Ninus, did at least mingle
its marvels to emblazon the terrible memories of this
titanic suicide. A vast and sinister splendour, such as
the night of Babylon had never seen, seemed suddenly
to set back and enlarge the vault of heaven ; a noise,
like all the thunders of the world pealing together, shook
the earth, and the walls of the city collapsed. There-
after a deeper night descended ; the palace of Sardana-
palus melted, and when the morrow came his conqueror
found no trace of its riches, no trace even of the king's
body and all his luxuries.
So ended the first empire of Assyria, and the civilisa-
tion founded of old by the true Zoroaster. Thus also
ended Magic, properly so called, and the reign of the
Kabalah began. Abraham on coming out from Chaldea
carried its mysteries with him. The people of God
increased in silence, and we shall meet before long with
Daniel confounding the miserable enchanters of Nebuch-
adnezzar and Belshazzar.^
* Eliphas L^vi adds in a note that, according to Suidas, Cedrenus
and the Chronicle of Alexandria^ it was Zoroaster himself who, seated in
his palace, disappeared suddenly and by his own will, with all his secrets
and all his riches, in a great peal of thunder. He explains that every
king who exercised divine power passed for an incarnation of Zoroaster,
and that Sardanapalus converted his pyre into an apotheosis.
63
CHAPTER III
MAGIC IN INDIA
We are told by Kabalistic tradition that India was
peopled by the descendants of Cain, and thither at a
later period migrated the descendants of Abraham and
Keturah ; in any case it is, above all others, the country
of Goetia and illusionary wonders. Black Magic has
been perpetuated therein, as well as the original tradi-
tions of fratricide imposed by the powerful on the weak,
continued by the dominant castes and expiated by the
pariahs. It may be said of India that she is the wise
mother of all idolatries. The dogmas of her gymno-
sophists would be keys of highest wisdom if they did
not open more easily the gates leading to degradation
and death. The astounding wealth of Indian symbolism
seems to suggest that it is anterior to all others, and
this is supported by the primeval freshness of its poetic
conceptions. But the root of its tree seems to have
been devoured by the infernal serpent. That deification
of the devil against which we have already entered an
energetic protest is displayed in all its grossness. The
terrible Trimurti of the Brahmans comprises a Creator,
a Destroyer and a Preserver. Their Adhi-nari, who
represents the Divine Mother, or Celestial Nature, is
called also Bohani, to whom the thugs or stranglers
make votive offerings of their murders. Vishnu, the
preserver, incarnates only to destroy an inferior devil,
who is always brought back to life by the intervention
of Siva or Rudra, the god of death. One is conscious
that Siva is the apotheosis of Cain, but there is nothing
in all this mythology which recalls the mildness of Abel.
64
D
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THE INDIAN AND JAPANESE MYSTERY OF UNlYFRSAf,
EQUILIBRIUM AND THE EGYPTIAN PANTOMORPHIC
lYINX
Facin^^ p. 64
The Derivations of Magic
The mysteries of India are notwithstanding grandiose
in their poetry and singularly profound in their alle-
gories ; but they are the Kabalah in profanation, and
hence so far from sustaining the soul and leading it to
supreme wisdom, Brahminism, with its learned theories,
plunges it into gulfs of madness.
It was from the false Kabalism of India that the
Gnostics borrowed their reveries — by turns horrible and
obscene ; it is also Indian Magic, manifesting on the
threshold of the occult sciences with a thousand deformi-
ties, which terrifies reasonable minds and provokes the
anathemas of all the understanding churches. It is this
false and dangerous knowledge, so often confounded by
the ignorant and by smatterers with true science, which
has involved all that bears the name of occultism in a
general condemnation, to which the author of these
pages himself subscribed sincerely before he had attained
the key of the magical sanctuary. For theologians of
the Vedas, God manifests as force only ; all progress
and all revelations are determined by conquest ; Vishnu
incarnates in monstrous leviathans of the sea and in
enormous wild boars, which mould the primeval earth
with their snouts.
Still it is a marvellous pantheistic genesis and the
authors of its fables are lucid at least in their somnam-
bulism. The ten Avatars of Vishnu correspond numeri-
cally to the Sephiroth of the Kabalah. The god in
?[uestion assumed successively three animal or elementary
orms of life, after which he became a sphinx and then
a human being. He appeared next as Brahma and in
a guise of assumed humility possessed the whole earth.
He was a child on another occasion, and as such the
consoling angel of the patriarchs. After this he
assumed the mask of a warrior and gave battle to the
oppressors of the world. Again he was embodied as
diplomacy, opposing it to violence, and seems at this
point to have abandoned the human form to assume
65 E
^
The History of Magic
the agility of the monkey. Diplomacy and violence
consumed one another, and the world awaited some
intellectual and moral redeemer. Vishnu thereupon in-
carnated as Krishna. He was proscribed even in his
cradle, beside which there watched the symbolical ass.
He was carried far away to save him from the power
of his enemies; he attained manhood and pieaci -d the
doctrine of mercy and good works. He descended into
hell, bound the infernal serpent and returned gloriously
to heaven. His annual festival is in August, under the
sign of the Virgin. Here is astonishing intuition con-
cerning Christian mysteries and so much the more
impressive when we remember that the sacred books
of India passed into writing many centuries before the
Christian era. To the revelation of Krishna succeeded
that of Buddha, who married the purest religion to
philosophy of the highest kind. The happiness of the
world was thus held to be secured and there was nothing
further to expect, pending the tenth and final incarna-
tion, when Vishnu will return in his proper form, lead-
ing the horse of the last judgment — that dread steed
whose fore foot is raised always and when it is set down
the world will be strewn in atoms.
We may note herein the presence of the sacred
numbers and prophetic calculations of the Magi.
Gymnosophists and Zoroastrian initiates drew from the
same sources, but it was the false and black Zoroaster
who remained master of theology in India. The final
secrets of this degenerate doctrine are pantheism and
its legitimate consequence, being absolute materialism
masquerading as the absolute negation of matter. But
what, it may be asked, does it signify whether spirit
is materialised or matter spiritualised so long as the
equality and identity of the two terms are postulated }
But the consequence of such pantheism is, however,
mortal to ethics : there are neither crimes nor virtues
in a 7orld where all is God. We may expect after such
66
The Derivations of Magic
teachings a progressive degradation of the Brahmans
into a fanatical quietism ; but as yet the end was not
reached. It remained for their great magical ritual, the
Indian book of occultism, otherwise the Oupnek'hat^ to
furnish the physical and moral means of consummating
the work of their stupefaction and arriving by a
graduated method at that raving madness termed by
their sorcerers the Divine State. The work in question
is the progenitor of all grimoires and the most curious
among the antiquities of Goetia. It is divided into
fifty sections and is a darkness spangled with stars.
Sublime maxims are blended with false oracles.^ At
* The analysis of ^liphas L^vi requires to be checked at all points.
He followed the Latin version of Anquetil Duperron, made from a
Persian text, and this is so rare as to be almost unobtainable. I shall
therefore deserve well of my readers by furnishing the following extract
from Deussen's Religion and Philosophy of India^ regarding the
Oupnek'hat:
"A position apart from the 52 and the 108 Upanishads is occupied
by that collection of 50 Upanishads which, under the name of OupneJ^hatf
was translated from the Sanskrit into the Persian in the year 1656 at the
instance of the Sultan Mohammed Dara Shakoh, and from the Persian
into the Latin in 1 801-2 by Anquetil Duperron. The OupneHhat
professes to be a general collection of Upanishads. It contains under
twelve divisions the Upanishads of the three older Vedas, and with them
26 Atharva Upanishads that are known from other sources. It further
comprises eight treatises peculiar to itself, five of which have not up to
the present time been proved to exist elsewhere, and of which therefore
a rendering from the Persian- Latin of Anquetil is alone possible. Finally
the Oupnekhat contains four treatises from the Vaj. Samh. 16, 31, 32, 34,
of which the first is met with in a shorter form in other collections also,
as in the Nilarudra Upanishad, while the three last have nowhere else
found admission. The reception of these treatises from the Samhita into
the body of the Upanishads, as though there were danger of their falling
otherwise into oblivion, makes us infer a comparatively later date for the
Oupnek^ hat coVit^cXxon itself, although as early as 1656 the Persian trans-
lators made no claim to be the original compilers, but took the collec-
tion over already complete. Owing to the excessive literality with which
Anquetil Duperron rendered these Upanishads word by word Trom the
Persian into Latin, while preserving the syntax of the former language —
a literality that stands in striking contrast to the freedom with which the
Persian translators treated the Sanskrit text — the OupneJihat is a very
difficult book to read ; and an insight as keen as that of Schopenhauer
was required in order to discover within this repellant husk a kernel of
invaluable philosophical significance, and to turn it to account for his
own system. An examination of the material placed at our disposal in
67
The History of Magic
times it reads like the Gospel of St. John, as, for
example, in the following extracts from the eleventh
and forty-eighth sections.
'*The angel of creative fire is the vjrord of God,
v^hich word produced the earth and the vegetation that
issues therefrom, together with the heat which ripens it.
The word of the Creator is itself the Creator and is also
His only Son." Now, on the other hand, the reveries
are worthy only of the most extravagant arch-heretics :
'* Matter being only a deceptive appearance, the sun,
the stars and the very elements are genii, while animals
are demons and man is a pure spirit deceived by the
illusions of forms.'* We are perhaps sufficiently edified
by these extracts in respect of doctrinal matters and may
proceed to the Magical Ritual of the Indian enchanters.
"In order to become God, the breath must be
retained — that is to say, it must be inhaled as long as
possible, till the chest is well distended — and in the second
place, the divine Om must be repeated inwardly forty
times while in this state. Expiration, in the third place,
follows very slowly, the breath being mentally directed
through the heavens to make contact with the universal
ether. Those who would succeed in this exercise must
be blind, deaf and motionless as a log of wood. The
posture is on knees and elbows, with the face turned
to the North. One nostril is stopped with a finger,
the air is inhaled by the other, which is then also closed,
the action being accompanied by dwelling in thought on
the Oupnek' hat 'wa,s first undertaken by A. Weber, Ind. Stud, i, ii, ix.,
on the basis of the Sanskrit text. Meanwhile the original texts were
published in the Bibliotheca Indica in part with elaborate commentaries,
and again in the Anandas'rama series. The two longest, and some of
the shorter treatises have appeared in a literal German rendering by
O. Bohtlingk. Max Miiller translated the twelve oldest Upanishads in
Sacred Books of the East^ vol. i. 15. And my ^own translation of the 60
Upanishads contains complete texts of this character which, upon the
strength of their regular occurrence in the Indian collections and lists of
the Upanishads, may lay claim to a certain canonicity. The prefixed
introductions and the notes treat exhaustively of the matter and com-
position of the several treatises."
68
"The Derivations of Magic
the idea that God is the Creator, that He is in all animals,
in the ant even as in the elephant. The mind must be
absorbed in these thoughts. Om is at first recited twelve
times and afterwards twenty-four times during each in-
spiration, and then as rapidly as possible. This regimen
must be continued for three months — without fear,
without remission, eating and sleeping little. In the
fourth month the Devas will manifest ; in the fifth you
will have acquired all qualities of the Devatas ; in the
sixth you will be saved and will have become God."
What seems certain is that in the sixth month the
fanatic who is sufliciently imbecile to persevere in such
a practice will be dead or insane. If, however, he should
really survive this exercise in mystic breathing, the
Oupnek'hat does not leave him in the happy position
mentioned but makes him pass to other experiences.
" With the end of one finger close the anus, and then
draw the breath from below upwards on the right side ;
make it circulate three times round the second centre
of the body ; thence bring it to the navel, which is the
third centre ; then to the fourth, which is the middle
of the heart ; subsequently to the throat, which is the
fifth ; and finally to the sixth, which is the root of the
nose. There retain the breath : it has become that of
the universal soul."
This seems simply an auto-hypnotic method of in-
ducing a certain cerebral congestion. But the author of
the treatise continues :
"Think therefore of the great Om, which is the
name of the Creator and is that universal, pure and
indivisible voice which fills all things. This voice is the
Creator Himself, Who becomes audible to the contem-
plative after ten manners. The first sound is like that of
a little sparrow; the second is twice the first in volume ;
the third is like the sound of a cymbal ; the fourth is
as the murmur of a great shell ; the fifth is comparable
to the song of the Indian lyre ; the sixth is like the
69
The History of Magic
sound of the instrument called tal; the seventh resembles
the sound of a hacahou flute, held close to the ear ; the
eighth is like that of the instrument called Pakaoudj^
which is struck with the hand ; the ninth is like the
sound of a little trumpet and the tenth like that of
a thunder cloud. At each of these sounds the con-
templative passes through different states, and at the
tenth he becomes God. At the first sound the hairs
of his whole body rise erect ; at the second, his limbs
become torpid; at the third, he feels through all his
frame the kind of exhaustion which follows the inter-
course of love ; at the fourth, his head swims and he
is as one intoxicated ; at the fifth, the life- force flows
back into his brain ; at the sixth, this force descends into
him and he is nourished thereon; at the seventh, he
becomes the master of vision, can see into the hearts
of others, and hears the most distant voices ; at the
ninth he becomes so ethereal that he can pass wheresoever
he will and can see without being seen, like the angels ;
at the tenth, he becomes the universal and indivisible
voice. He is the great creator, the eternal being, exempt
from all and, having become the perfect peace, he dis-
penses peace to the world.'*
What is noticeable in these most curious extracts
is their exhaustive description of phenomena which
characterise lucid somnambulism combined with a com-
plete practice of auto-hypnosis ; it is the art of inducing
ecstasy by tension of the will and fatigue of the nervous
system. We recommend therefore to mesmerists a careful
study of the mysteries of the Oupnek'hat. The graduated
use of narcotics and of a scale of coloured discs will
produce eflfects analogous to those described by the
Indian sorcerer. M. Ragon has provided the recipe in
his work on La Magonnerie Occulte} The Oupnek'hat
* This forms the second book of the collection entitled Orthodoxie
Magonnique, which was published in 1853. The account of magical discs
and the planets corresponding to them will be found on pp. 498-501. Ragon
pretended that there was a system of Occult Masonry in three Degrees.
70
The Derivations of Magic
gives a simpler method of losing consciousness and
arriving at ecstasy ; it is to look with both eyes at
the end of the nose and to maintain this act, or rather
this grimace, until paralysis of the optic nerve supervenes.
All such practices are equally painful, dangerous and
ridiculous ; v/e are far from recommending them to
anyone ; but V7e do not question that in a shorter or
longer time, according to the sensibility of the subjects,
they will induce ecstasy, catalepsy and even a dead
swoon. In order to obtain vision and the phenomena
of second sight, a state must be reached which is akin
to that of sleep, death and madness. It is in this that
the Indians excel and it is perhaps to their secrets that
we must refer the strange power of certain American
mediums.
Black Magic may be defined as the art of inducing
artificial mania in ourselves and in others ; but it is also
and above all the science of poisoning. What is however
generally unknown, and the discovery in our days is
due to M. Du Potet, is that it is possible to destroy life
by the sudden congestion or withdrawal of the Astral
Light. This may take place when, through a series
of almost impossible exercises, similar to those described
by the Indian sorcerer, our nervous system, having been
habituated to all tensions and fatigues, has become a
kind of living galvanic pile, capable of condensing and
projecting powerfully that light which intoxicates or
destroys.
We are not, however, at the end of the Oupnek*hat
and its magical wonders ; there is a final arcanum which
the darksome hierophant entrusts to his initiates as the
supreme secret of all; it is actually the shadow and
reverse side of the great mystery of Transcendent
Magic. Now, the latter is the absolute in morality
and consequently in the direction of activity and in
freedom. On the other hand, that of the Oupnek'hat
is the absolute in immorality, in fatality and in deadly
71
The History of Magic
quietism : it is expressed as follows by the author of
the Indian work : ** It is lawful to lie in order to facilitate
marriages, to exalt the virtues of a Brahman or the
good qualities of a cow. God is truth, and in Him
shadow and light are one. Whosoever is acquainted
with this truth never lies, for his very falsehood turns
true. Whatever sin he commits, whatever evil he
performs, he is never guilty ; if he committed a double
parricide ; if he killed a Brahman initiated into the
mysteries of the Vedas ; in a word, whatever he did,
his light would not be impaired, for God says : I am
the Universal Soul ; in Me are good and evil, which
are moderated one by the other ; he who knows this
cannot sin, for he is universal even as Myself."
Such doctrines are incompatible with civilisation, and
furthermore, by stereotyping its social hierarchy, India
has imbedded anarchy in the castes, whereas social life
is a question of exchange. Now, exchange is impossible
when everything belongs to a few and nothing to others.
What do social gradations signify in a putative civil state
wherein no one can fall or rise.? Herein is the long-
delayed punishment of the fratricide ; it is one which
involves his entire race and condemns it to death.
Should some alien, proud and egotistic nation inter-
vene, it will sacrifice India — even as oriental legends
tell us that Cain was killed by Lamech. Woe, not-
withstanding to the murderer of Cain — so say the sacred
oracles of the Bible.
72
CHAPTER IV
HERMETIC MAGIC
It is in Egypt that Magic attains the grade, of completion
as an universal science and is formulated as a perfect doc-
trine. As a summary of all the dogmas which obtained
in the ancient world, nothing surpasses and indeed nothing
equals those few paragraphs graven on precious stone by
Hermes and denominated the Emerald Tablet. Unity
of being and unity in the harmony of things, according
to the ascending and descending scales ; progressive and
proportional evolution of the Word ; immutable law of
equilibrium and graduated progress of universal analogies ;
correspondence between the idea and its expression pro-
viding a measure of likeness between Creator and created ;
essential mathematics of the infinite, proved by the
dimensions of a single angle in the finite : all this is
expressed by the one proposition : " that which is above is
like that which is below, and that which is below is like
that which is above, for the fulfilment of the wonders
of the one thing." Hereunto are added the revelation
and illuminating description of the creative agent, the
pantomorphic fire, the great medium of occult force — in
a word, the Astral Light.
'* The sun is its father and the moon its mother ; the
wind has borne it in the belly thereof." It follows that
this light has emanated from the sun and has received
form and rhythmical movement from the influences of
tne moon, while the atmosphere is its receptacle and
prison. " The earth is its nurse " — that is to say, it is
equilibrated and set in motion by the central heat of
the earth. " It is the universal principle, the Telesma
of the world."
73
The History of Magic
Hermes goes on to set forth in what manner this
light, which is also a force, can be applied as a lever, as
an universal dissolvent and as a formative and coagulative
agent ; how also this light must be extracted from the
bodies in which it lies latent in order to imitate all the
artifices of Nature by the aid of its diverse manifestations
as fire, motion, splendour, radiant gas, scalding water or
finally igneous earth. The Emerald Tablet contains all
Magic in a single page.^ The other works attributed to
Hermes,'' such as the Divine Pymander^ Asclepius^ Minerva
of the fVorld^ &c. are generally regarded by critics as pro-
ductions of the School of Alexandria ; but they contain
notwithstanding the Hermetic traditions which were pre-
served in theurgic sanctuaries. For those who possess
the keys of symbolism the doctrines of Hermes can
never be lost ; amidst all their ruin, the monuments of
Egypt are as so many scattered leaves which can be
collected and the book of those doctrines thus recon-
structed entirely. In that vast book the capital letters
are temples and the sentences are cities punctuated with
obelisks and by the sphinx.
The physical division of Egypt was itself a magical
synthesis, and the names of its provinces corresponded to
the ciphers of sacred numbers. The realm of Sesostris
was divided into three parts ; of these Upper Egypt, or
* The legend concerning the Emerald Tablet is that it was found by
Alexander the Great in the tomb of Hermes, which was hidden by the
priests of Egypt in the depths of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. It was
supposed to have been written by Hermes on a large plate of emerald
by means of a pointed diamond. I believe that there is no Greek version
extant, and it is referred by Louis Figuier to the seventh century of the
Christian era, or thereabouts. See UAlchimie et les AlchimisteSy p. 42.
" In his Lexicon Alchemice Rulandus reminds us that "the old
astronomers dedicated the Emerald to Mercury," and Berthelot says
that this was in conformity with Egyptian ideas, which classed the
Emerald and Sapphire in their list of metals. See Collection des Anciens
Alchimistes Grecs^ premiere livraison, p. 269. The planet Mercury was
the planet Hermes and it may be that some mystical connection was
supposed between quicksilver and the precious stone. This would have
been in Graeco-Alexandrian times, if ever, as ancient Egypt does not
seem to have been acquainted with quicksilver.
74
The Derivations of Magic
the Thebaid, was a type of the celestial world and the
land of ecstasy ; Lower Egypt was the symbol of earth ;
while Middle or Central Egypt was the land of science
and of high initiation. Each of these parts was sub-
divided into ten provinces, called Nomes, and was placed
under the particular protection of a god. There were
therefore 30 gods and they were grouped by threes,
giving symbolical expression in this manner to all possible
conceptions of the triad within the decad, or otherwise
to the threefold material, philosophical and religious
significance of absolute ideas attached primitively to
numbers. We have thus the triple unity or the first
triad, the triple binary ^ formed by the first triad and its
reflection, being the Star of Solomon ; the triple triad or
the complete idea under each of its three forms ; the
triple quaternary, being the cyclic number of astral revolu-
tions, and so onward. The geography of Egypt under
Sesostris is therefore a pantacle or symbolical summary
of the entire magical dogma originating with Zoroaster
and rediscovered or formulated more precisely by Hermes.
In this manner did the land of Egypt become as a
great volume and the instructions contained therein
were multiplied by translation into pictures, sculptures,
architecture through the length and breadth of the towns
and in all temples. The very desert had its eternal
teachings, and its word of stone was set squarely on the
foundations of the pyramids. The pyramids themselves
stood like boundaries of the human intelligence, in the
presence of which the colossal sphinx meditated age after
age, sinking by insensible degrees into the desert sand.
Even at this day its head, defaced by the work of time,
still emerges from its sepulchre, as if waiting expectantly
the signal for its complete entombment at the coming
^ The text says : le triple binaire ou le mirage du triangle, but it is
obvious that the reflected triad cannot be termed binary. The expres-
sion is confused, but the meaning is that the first triangle equals unity, or
the number i ; the second triad corresponds to the duad, or number 2 ;
the third triad to the number 3, and so onward.
75
The History of Magic
of a human voice revealing to a new world the problem
of the pyramids.
Egypt from our standpoint is the cradle of science
and of wisdom, for it clothed with images the antique
dogma of the first Zoroaster more exactly and more
purely, if not more richly, than those of India. The
Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art made adepts by
initiation in Egypt, and such initiation was not restricted
within the egotistic limits of caste. We know that a
Jewish bondsman himself attained not only initiation but
the rank of minister in chief, perhaps even of Grand
Hierophant, for he espoused the daughter of an Egyptian
priest, and there is evidence that the priesthood in that
country tolerated no misalliance. Joseph realised in
Egypt the dream of communism ; he established the
priesthood and the state as sole proprietors and thus
sole arbiters of labour and wealth. In this way he
abolished distress and turned the whole of Egypt into
a patriarchal family. It is a matter of common know-
ledge that his elevation was due to skill in the intepreta-
tion of dreams, a science which even devout Christians
now refuse to credit, though they recognise that the
Bible, which narrates the wonderful divinations of Joseph,
is the word of the Holy Spirit. The science of Joseph
was none other than a comprehension of the natural
analogies which subsist between ideas and images, or
between the Word and its symbols. He knew that the
soul when immersed by sleep in the Astral Light, perceives
the reflections of its most secret thoughts and even of its
presentiments ; he knew further that the art of trans-
lating the hieroglyphics of sleep is the key of universal
lucidity, seeing that all intelligent beings have revelations
in dreams.
The basis of absolute hieroglyphical science was an
alphabet in which deities were represented by letters,
letters represented ideas, ideas were convertible into
numbers, and numbers were perfect signs. This hiero-
76
The Derivations of Magic
glyphical alphabet was the great secret which Moses
enshrined in his Kabalah ; its Egyptian origin is com-
memorated in the Sepher Tetzirah^ in which it is referred
to Abraham. Now this alphabet is the famous Book of
Thoth, and it was divined by Court de Gebelin that it
has been preserved to our own day in the form of Tarot
cards. It passed later on into the hands of Etteilla, who
interpreted it in the wrong sense, for even a study extend-
ing over thirty years could not atone for his want of
common sense or supply deficiencies in his education.
The record exists still among the drift and waste of
Egyptian monuments ; and its most curious, most com-
plete key is found in the great work on Egypt by
Athanasius Kircher. It is the copy of an Isiac tablet
which belonged to the celebrated Cardinal Bembo. The
tablet in question is of copper with figures in enamel,
and it has been unfortunately lost. The copy supplied
by Kircher is, however, exact. ^ The learned Jesuit
divined that it contained the hieroglyphic key of sacred
alphabets, though he was unable to develop the explana-
tion. It is divided into three equal compartments ; above
are the twelve houses of heaven and below are the corres-
ponding distributions of labour throughout the year,
while in the middle place are twenty-one sacred signs
answering to the letters of the alphabet. In the midst
of all is a seated figure of the pantomorphic Iynx, emblem
of universal being ^ and corresponding as such to the
* The reference is to Athanasius Kircher's (Edipus ^Egyptiacus^ 3
vols, in folio, bound usually in four, published at Rome, 1652- 1654. The
Alensa Isiaca^ being the Bembine Tablet, so called because its discovery
is connected with the name of Cardinal Bembo, is in the third volume —
a folding plate beautifully produced. The original is exceedingly late
and is roughly termed a forgery. In 1669 the Tablet was reproduced
on a larger scale by means of a number of folding plates in the Mensa
Isiaca of Laurentius Pignorius. Both works are exceedingly rare. I
suppose that these are the only records of the Tablet now extant, with
the exception of a large copy in my possession made from the above
sources.
* Mr. G. R. S. Mead tells us that lynx in its root-meaning, according
to Proclus, signifies the*' power of transmission" which is said in the
77
The History of Magic
Hebrew Tod^ or to that unique letter from which all
other letters were formed. The Iynx is encircled by the
Ophite triad, answering to the Three Mother Letters of
the Egyptian and Hebrew alp^abets.^ On the right are
the ibimorphic and serapian triads ; on the left are those
of Nepthys and Hecate, representing active and passive,
fixed and volatile, fructifying fire and generating water.
Each pair of triads in conjunction with the centre pro-
duces a septenary, and a septenary is contained in the
centre. The three septenaries furnish the absolute
number of the three worlds, as well as the complete
number of primitive letters, to which a complementary
sign is added, like zero to the nine numerals. The ten
numbers and the twenty-two letters are termed in
Kabalism the Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, and their
philosophical description is the subject of that venerated
primaeval book known as the Sepher Yetzirahy the text of
which will be found in the collection of Pistorius and
elsewhere.*'* The alphabet of Thoth is the original of our
Tarot only in an indirect manner, seeing that the latter
is of Jewish origin in the extant copies and that its pictures
are not older than the reign of Charles VII. The cards
Chaldaean Oracles " to sustain the fountains." Mr. Mead thinks that the
lyinges were reproduced (^) as Living Spheres and {p) as Winged Globes.
He thinks, also, that (a) the Mind on the plane of reality put forth {jb) the
one lyinxy {c) after this three lyinges ^ called paternal and ineffable, and
finally {d) there may have been hosts of subordinate lyinges. They
were " free intelligences." It seems- to follow that the lynx was not " an
emblem of universal being," but a product of the Eternal Mind.
^ It may be mentioned that the Hebrew alphabet was divided into
(«) Three Mother Letters, namely, Aleph^ Mem and Skin ; (b) Seven
Double Letters, being Beiky Gimely Daleth, Kaph^ Pe^ Resh, Tau ; and
{c) Twelve Simple Letters, or He^ Vauy Zain>t Heth^ Telh, Yod^ Lamedf
Nun» Samechy ^yin<, Tsade^ Quoph*
■ The Sepher Yetzirah was first made known to Latin reading
Europe by William Postel. Publication took place at Bile in 1547. It
is said to have been reissued at Amsterdam in 1646. The collection of
Pistorius, entitled Artis Cabalistica Scrip^oreSj belongs to 1587. Later
and modern editions of the Book of Formation are fairly numerous. It
was translated into French, together with the Arabic commentary of
R. Saadya Gaon, by Mayor Lambert, in 1891. An English version by
Dr. W. Wynn Westcott will serve the purpose of the general reader,
78
00
^
The Derivations of Magic
of Jacquemin Gringonneur are the first Tarots of which
we have any knowledge, but they reproduce symbols
belonging to the highest antiquity. The game in its
modern form was an experiment on the part of astrologers
to restore the king, who has been mentioned, to reason.^
The oracles of the Tarot give answers as exact as mathe-
matics and measured as the harmonies of Nature. Such
answers result from the varied combination of the different
signs. But it requires a considerable exercise of reason
to make use of an instrument belonging to reason and to
science ; the poor king, in his childish condition, saw only
the playthings of an infant in the artist's pictures and he
turned the mysterious Kabalistic alphabet^ into a game
of cards.
We are told by Moses that the Israelites carried away
the sacred vessels of the Egyptians when they came out
of the land of bondage. The account is allegorical, for
the great prophet would scarcely have encouraged his
people in an act of theft ; the sacred vessels in question
were the mysteries of Egyptian knowledge, acquired by
Moses himself at the court of Pharaoh. We are by no
means suggesting that the miracles of this man of God
are referable to Magic ; but we know on the authority
^ The Tarots of this period belong to the year 1393, and it has been
suggested recently in France that the artist Charles Gringonneur was
really their inventor. It is useful to note this opinion, but I do not think
that any importance attaches to it. The extant Gringonneur examples
in the Bibiiothlque Nationale have also been said to be of Italian ongin
and not therefore his work. The Venetian Tarots have been sometimes
regarded as the oldest known form. The historical question is obscure
beyond all extrication at present.
''In face of existing evidence, the description of the Tarot Trumps
Major as a Kabalistic alphabet has as much and as little to support it
as the claim that they constitute an Egyptian Book of Thoth, It has
been reported to me, however, that there is an unknown Jewish Tarot,
and it may interest students of the subject to know that before long I
hope to be able to give some account at first hand concerning it. There
is little reason to suppose that it will prove {a) ancient or {p) Kabalistic ;
but as one never knows what is at one's threshold, I put the fact on
record for whatever it may be worth in the future. Meanwhile, it is
quite idle to say that our popular fortune-telling Tarots are of Jewish
origin.
79
The History of Magic
of the Bible that Jannes and Mambres, who were the
magicians of Pharaoh and consequently grand hierophants
of Egypt, began by performing in virtue of their art
wonders which were similar to those of Moses. They
transformed wands into serpents and serpents again into
wands, which might be explicable by prestige or fascina-
tion ; they changed water into blood ; they produced a
swarm of frogs in a moment ; but they could not cause
flies to appear or other parasitic insects, for reasons which
we have explained already, as also the manner in which
they were forced to confess themselves vanquished.
Moses triumphed and led the Israelites out of the
land of bondage. It was at this period that true science
became lost to Egypt, for the priests, abusing the implicit
confidence of the people, allowed that knowledge to
degenerate into brutalising idolatry. Such is the rock
of peril for esoteric science ; the truth must be veiled,
yet not hidden from the people ; symbolism must not be
disgraced by a lapse into absurdity; the sacred veil of
Isis must be preserved in its beauty and dignity. It was
over this that the Egyptian priesthood failed ; the vulgar
and the foolish understood the hieroglyphic forms of Isis
and Hermanubis as real things, so that Osiris was under-
stood to be an ox, while the wise Hermes was a dog.
The transformed Osiris masqueraded in the fantastic guise
of the bull of Apis, nor did the priests hinder the people
from adoring flesh intended for their kitchens. It was
time to save the holy traditions ; Moses established a new
nation and forbade all worship of images ; but the people
unfortunately had dwelt long among idolaters and
memories of the bull of Apis remained with them in the
desert. We know the history of that Golden Calf to
which the children of Israel have been always a little
addicted. Moses, however, did not wish the sacred
hieroglyphics to pass out of memory, and he sanctified
them by their consecration to the purified worship of the
true God. We shall see how all objects which entered
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into the cultus of Jehovah were symbolic in character and
recalled the venerable signs of primaeval revelation. But
we must first finish with the Gentiles and follow through
pagan civilisation the story of materialised hieroglyphics
and of ancient rites degenerated.
8i
CHAPTER V
MAGIC IN GREECE
We pass now to the period when the exact sciences of
Magic assumed their natural external form, being that
of beauty. We have seen in the Zohar how the human
prototype rose in heaven and was reflected below in the
waters of being. This ideal man, this shadow of the
pantomorphic god, this virile phantom of perfect form
was not destined to dwell alone in the world of sym-
bolism. There was given to him a companion under
the beneficent sky of Hellas. The celestial Venus, the
chaste and fruitful Venus, the triple mother of the three
Graces, rose in her turn, no longer from the sleeping
deeps of chaos, but from the living and flowing waves
of that echoing archipelago of poetry, where islands
embroidered with green trees and flowers seem as the
vessels of gods.
The magical septenary of Chaldea passes into music
on the seven strings of the Orphic lyre. It is harmony
which transforms the woods and wildernesses of Greece.
To the melody of the songs of Orpheus, the rocks are
smoothed, the oaks sway in measures and the wild
beasts become subject to man. By such magic did
Amphion raise up the walls of Thebes — that wisdom-
city of Cadmus, the city of initiation, itself a pantacle
like the seven wonders of the world. As Orpheus gave
life to numbers, so Cadmus bound thought to the sigils
of letters. The one established a nation dedicated to all
things beautiful, and for that nation the other provided
a native land, corresponding to its genius and its love.
In the ancient Greek traditions, Orpheus is numbered
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among the heroes of the Golden Fleece, who were the
primeval conquerors of the Great Work. The Golden
Fleece is the vesture of the sun itself; it is light in
application to the needs of man ; it is the grand secret
of magical works ; it is in fine, initiation as this should
be understood essentially ; and it was the quest of these
or this which carried the allegorical heroes into a mystic
Asia. On the other hand, Cadmus was a voluntary exile
from the glorious Thebes of Egypt ; he brought into
Greece the knowledge of letters and that harmony of
which they are images. The new Thebes, the typical
city of wisdom, was built to the measures of that
harmony, for science consists in the rhythmic corre-
spondence between hieroglyphical, phonetic and numeral
characters, the inherent motion of which follows the
eternal laws of mathematics. Thebes is circular and its
citadel is square ; like the sky of Magic, it has seven
gates, and its legend was destined to become the epic of
occultism and the foreshadowed history of human genius.
All these mysterious allegories, all these inspired
traditions, are the soul of Greek civilisation ; but we
must be dissuaded from seeking the real history of their
poetic heroes otherwise than in the transformations of
oriental history carried into Greece by unknown hiero-
phants. It was only the history of ideas which was
written by the great of those days, and they were at
little pains to acquaint us with the human struggles
belonging to the birth of empires. Homer followed in
their path, marshalling the gods, who are the immortal
types of thought; it was in this sense that a world's
upheaval followed on the frown of Jupiter. If Greece
carried fire and sword into Asia, it was to avenge the
profanations of science and virtue in their sacrifice to
lust; it was to restore the empire of the world to
Minerva and Juno, in despite of that sensuous Venus
who ruined her devoted lovers. Such is the sublime
mission of poetry, which substitutes gods for men, or
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The History of Magic
causes in place of effects and eternal concepts for the
sorry incarnations of greatness on earth. Ideas raise up
and they also cast down empires •, a faith of some kind
is at the root of all grandeur, and in order that faith
may be poetry, or in other words creative, it must be
founded on truth. The only history which is worthy to
occupy the wise is that of the light which is victorious
over darkness for ever. That which is called a civilisa-
tion is one great day of this sun.
The fable of the Golden Fleece connects Hermetic
Magic with Greek initiations. The Golden Fleece of the
solar ram, which must be obtained by those or by him
who would possess universal sovereignty, is figurative of
the Great Work. The Argonautic vessel, built of timber
from the prophetic oaks of Dodona, the speaking vessel,
is the ship of the mysteries of Isis, the ark of life-force
and renewal, the coffer of Osiris, the egg of divine re-
generation. The adventurer Jason is he who is prepared
for initiation, tut he is a hero in his valour only ; he has
all the inconstancy and all the weakness of humanity,
but he takes with him the personifications of all power.
Hercules, who signifies brute force, has no real part in
the work, for he goes astray from the path in pursuit of
his unworthy loves. The others arrive in the land of
initiation, of Colchis, where the remnant of Zoroastrian
secrets is still preserved. The question is how to obtain
the key of these mysteries, and science is once again
betrayed by a woman. Medea delivers to Jason the
arcana of the Great Work, with the kingdom and the
life of her father; for it is a fatal law of the occult
sanctuary that the revelation of its secrets entails death
upon him who has proved unable to preserve them.
Medea informs Jason of the monsters with which he
must do battle and of that which will ensure his victory.
There is firstly the winged serpent of earth, the astral
fluid which must be seized and fixed ; its teeth must be
drawn and sown in a waste place, which has been pre-
The Derivations of Magic
viously ploughed by the bulls of Mars. The dragon's
teeth are those acids ^ which dissolve the metallic earth
after its preparation by a double fire and by the earth's
magnetic forces. A fermentation follows, comparable to
a great battle ; the impure is devoured by the impure,
and the splendid Fleece is the reward of the adept.
So ends the magical romance of Jason and that of
Medea follows, for Greek antiquity sought to include in
this history the complete epic of occult science. Her-
metic Magic is succeeded by gOetia, parricide, fratricide,
infanticide, sacrificing all to its passions but never enjoy-
ing the harvest of its crimes. Medea betrays her father
like Ham and assassinates her brother like Cain. She
stabs her children, poisons her rival and reaps the hatred
of him whose love she has coveted. It may be surprising
on the surface that Jason does not gain in wisdom by
the mastery of the Golden Fleece, but it must be re-
membered that he owes the discovery of its secrets to
treason only. He is a ravisher after the manner of
Prometheus and not an adept like Orpheus ; he is in
search of wealth and power rather than of knowledge.
Hence he perishes miserably, for the inspiring and
sovereign virtues of the Golden Fleece will be never under-
stood except by the disciples of Orpheus.
Prometheus, the Golden Fleece, the Thebaid, the
Iliad and the Odyssey — these five great epics, full of
the mysteries of Nature and human destinies, constitute
the bible of ancient Greece, a cyclopean monument, a
Pelion piled upon an Ossa, masterpiece over masterpiece,
* The interpretation of Levi seems to hesitate between several fields
of symbolism, and what follows at this point suggests that the Golden
Fleece is an allegory of metallic transmutation by means of alchemy.
It was so regarded by many of the later disciples of this art. According
to Antoine Joseph Pernety, the Golden Fleece is the symbol of the
matter of the Great Work ; the labours of Jason are an allegory con-
cerning the operations therein and of the signs of progress towards per-
fection. The attainment of this Fleece signifies that of the Powder of
Projection and the Universal Medicine. See Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermd-
tique and Les Fables Egyptiennes ei Grecques^ both by Pernety, and in
particular vol. i. of the latter work, pp. 437-494.
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The History of Magic
form on form, beautiful as light itself and throned upon
eternal thoughts, sublime in truth. It was however at
their proper risk and peril that the hierophants of poetry
committed to the Greek people these marvellous fictions
in which truth was shrined. Aeschylus who dared to
depict the Titanic struggles, superhuman woes and divine
hopes of Prometheus — Aeschylus, the awe-inspiring poet
of the family of CEdipus — was accused of betraying
and profaning the mysteries and escaped with difficulty
a severe condemnation. We are unable at this day to
realise his whole intent, which was a dramatic trilogy
embracing the entire symbolic history of Prometheus.
It follows that he exhibited to the assembled people how
Prometheus was delivered by Alcides and how Jupiter
was cast from his throne. The omnipotence of genius
in its suffering and the decisive victory of patience
over power are fine no doubt, but the crowd might see
therein the future triumph of impiety and anarchy.
Prometheus overcoming Jupiter might be understood
as the people destined to be liberated one day from
their priests and kings ; and guilty hopes might count
for much in the prodigal applause accorded to him who
unveiled this prospect imprudently. To the leanings
of dogma towards poetry we owe the masterpieces in
question, and we are not therefore to be counted among
the austere initiates who would wish, like Plato, to
crown and then exile the poets ; for the true poets are
ambassadors of God on earth and those who cast them
forth deserve no blessing from heaven.
The great Greek initiator and he who civilised it
first was also its first poet, for even in allowing that
Orpheus was a mystical or fabulous personality, we must
believe in the existence of Musaeus and attribute to him
the verses which pass under the name of his master.^
* Among several bearers of this name, I suppose that the reference is
to him who, by tradition, was either the disciple or son of Orpheus,
commemorated by Virgil. None of his poems are extant, so that
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The Derivations of Magic
It matters little to us otherwise whether one of the
Argonauts was called Orpheus or not, for the poetic
creator has done more than live ; he lives in immortality
for ever. The Orphic fable is a complete dogma, a
revelation of priestly destinies, a new ideal form of the
worship of beauty. The regeneration and redemption
of love are indicated already therein. Orpheus descends
into hell, seeking Eurydice and must bring her back
without seeing her ; so must the pure man create his
companion, raise her to himself by devotion and not by
desire of her. It is in renouncing the object of passion
that we deserve to possess the object of true love. We
are already in the atmosphere of the pure dreams of
Christian chivalry. But the hierophant is still a man ;
he falters, questions and looks. Ah miser or Eurydicem.
She is lost, the error is committed, the expiation must
now begin. Orpheus is widowed and remains as such
in purity ; the marriage with Eurydice had not attained
consummation, and as the widower of one who was a
virgin he rested himself in virginity. The poet is not
two-hearted and children of the race of gods love once
and once alone. Paternal inspirations, yearnings for an
ideal which shall be found beyond the tomb, widowhood
made holy in its consecration to the sacred muse. What
a revelation in advance of inspirations yet to come.
Orpheus, bearing in his heart a wound that nothing but
death shall heal, becomes a doctor of souls and bodies ;
he dies at length, the victim of his chastity — the death
which he suffers is that of initiators and prophets. He
perishes proclaiming the unity of god and the unity also
of love : this at a later period was the root of the Orphic
Mysteries.
Having shewn himself raised so far above his own
epoch, Orpheus earned in due course the reputation of
the argument seems to fail. The antiquity of the Orphic poems —
Ar^onautica^ Hymns, etc. — is another question, and the conclusions of
criticism on the subject are well known.
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The History of Magic
a sorcerer and enchanter. To him, as to Solomon,
were attributed the knowledge of simples and minerals,
of celestial medicine and the philosophical stone. With
these he was doubtless acquainted, since he personifies
primitive mitiation, fall and reparation in his legend — the
three divisions of the great work of humanity.
Orphic initiation may, according to Ballanche, be
summarised in the following manner : *' Made subject
in the first place to the influence of the elements, man's
own influence must afterwards govern these. Creation
is the act of a divine magism which is continuous and
eternal. True being resides for man in self-knowledge.
Responsibility is for him a conquest and the very penalty
of sin is another occasion for victory. All life is founded
on death, and palingenesis is the law of reparation.
Marriage is the reproduction in humanity of the great
cosmogonical mystery. It should be one, as God and
Nature are one. It is the unity of the Tree of Life,
while debauch is division and death. Astrology is a
synthesis, because the Tree of Life is a single tree and
because its branches — spread through heaven and bearing
flowers of stars — are in correspondence with its roots,
which are hidden in earth. The knowledge of the
medical and magical virtues resident in plants, metals
and bodies endowed with varying degrees of life, is also
a synthetic knowledge. The capacities for organisation
in their various grades are revealed by a synthesis. The
aggregations and affinities of metals, like the vegetative
soul of plants and like all powers of assimilation, are
also made known by a synthesis.''
It has been said that the beautiful is the splendour
of the true, and it is therefore to this great light of
Orpheus that we must ascribe the perfection or form
which was manifested for the first time in Greece. To
him also — as to a source — is referable the school of
divine Plato, that pagan father of all high Christian
philosophy. From him did Pythagoras and the illumi-
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The Derivations of Magic
nati of Alexandria alike derive their mysteries. Initiation
does not suffer vicissitude; it is one and the same,
wheresoever we meet with it through the ages. The
last disciples of Martines de Pasqually are still the
children of Orpheus; but they adore the Realiser of
antique philosophy, Who is the incarnate Word of
Christians.
We have said that the first part of the fable con-
cerning the Golden Fleece embodies the secrets of
Orphic Magic and that the second part is dedicated to
judicious warnings against the abuses of GOetia or the
Magic of darkness. False or GOetic Magic, known at
the present day under the name of sorcery, can never
rank as a science : it is the empiricism of fatality. All
excessive passion produces a factitious force of which
will cannot be the master, but that force is obedient to
the tyranny of passion. This is why Albertus Magnus
counsels us t^ curse no one in our wrath. It is the
story of the malediction of Hippolytus by Theseus.
Excessive passion is real madness, and the latter in its
turn is an intoxication or congestion of Astral Light.
This is why madness is contagious and why passions in
general operate as a veritable witchcraft. Women are
superior to men in sorcery because they are more easily
transported by excess of passion. The word sorcerer
clearly designates victims of chance and, so to speak,
the poisonous mushrooms of fatality.
Greek sorcerers, but especially those of Thessaly,
put horrible precepts to the proof and were given over
to abominable rites. They were mostly women wasted
by desires which they could no longer satisfy, antiquated
courtesans, monsters of immorality and ugliness. Jealous
of love and life, those wretched creatures found lovers
only in the tombs, or rather they violated sepulchres
to devour with foul caresses the icy bodies of young
men. They stole children and stifled their cries by
pressing them to their dangling breasts. They were
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The History of Magic
known as lamia ^ stryges^ empusa ; children were the
objects of their envy and thus of their hatred, and they
sacrificed them for this reason. Some, like that Canidia
who is mentioned by Horace, buried them as far as the
head and left them to die of hunger, surrounded with
tood which they could not reach ; others cut off the
heads, hands and feet, boiled their fat and grease, in
copper basins, to the consistence of an ointment, which
they afterwards mixed with the juice of henbane, bella-
donna and black poppies. With this unguent they
anointed the organ which was irritated unceasingly by their
detestable desires ; they rubbed also their temples and
arm-pits, and then fell into a lethargy full of unbridled
and luxurious dreams. There is need to speak plainly —
these are the origins and this is the traditional practice
of Black Magic ; these are the secrets which were handed
down to the middle ages ; and such in tine are the
pretended innocent victims whom public execration, far
more than the sentence of inquisitors, condemned to the
flames. It was in Spain and in Italy above all that the
race of stryges^ lamia and empusa abounded, even at a
late period ; those who doubt should consult the most
experienced criminologists of these countries, digested by
Franciscus Torreblanca,^ Royal Advocate of the Chancelry
of Granada, in his Epitome Delictorum.
Medea and Circe are the types of Malefic Magic
among the Greeks. Circe is the vicious female who
bewitches and debases her lovers ; Medea is the brazen
poisoner who dares everything and makes Nature itself the
abettor of her crimes. There are actually creatures who
enchant like Circe and whose proximity defiles. They
can inspire nothing but brutal passions ; they exhaust and
* Almost any of the demonologists will serve at need. The Jesuit
Martinus Delrio, who wrote Disquisitionum Ma^icarum Libri Sex has
plenty to say about LamicB and Stryges. There is also Joannes Wierus,
the pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, whose famous work on the Illusions and
Impostures of Sorcery — Histoires^ Disputes et Discours — was rendered
from Latin into French, in 1885.
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The Derivations of Magic
then disdain you. They must be treated according to
the policy of Ulysses, by compelling them to obedience
through fear and by being able to leave them in the end
without regret. They are beautiful, heartless monsters
and their vanity is their whole life. They were depicted
by antiquity in the form of syrens.
As to Medea, she is perversity incarnate, willing and
working evil. She is capable of love and does not yield
to fear, but her love is more terrible than her hate.
She is a bad mother and the destroyer of children ; she
loves the night and under the rays of the moon she
gathers noxious herbs foj the brewing of poisons. She
magnetises the air, brings dole to earth, infects water and
makes even the fire venomous. Reptiles provide her
with their skins ; she mutters frightful words ; the track
of blood follows her ; and mutilated limbs fall from her
hands. Her counsels madden, her caresses beget horror.
Such is the woman who has sought to rise beyond
the duties of her sex by familiarity with forbidden sciences.
Men avoid her, children hide when she passes. She is
devoid of reason, devoid of true love, and the stratagems
of Nature in revolt against her are the ever-renewing
torment of her pride.
91
CHAPTER VI
MATHEMATICAL MAGIC OF PYTHAGORAS
He who initiated Numa, and of whose proficiency in
Magic something has been said already, was a personage
known as Tarchon, himself the disciple of a Chaldean
named Tages. Science had then its apostles who went
to and fro in the world, making priests and kings
therein. Not infrequently persecution itself was over-
ruled to fulfil the designs of Providence, and so it came
about toward the seventy-second Olympiad, or four
generations after the reign of Numa. Pythagoras of Samos
sought a refuge in Italy from the tyranny of Polycrates.
The great promoter of the philosophy of numbers had
visited all the sanctuaries of the world and had even been
in Judaea, where he suffered circumcision ^ as the price
of his admission into the mysteries of the Kabalah, com-
municated to him, though not without a certain reserve,
by the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel. Subsequently,
but again not without difficulty, he obtained Egyptian
initiation, being recommended by the King Amasis.
The capacities of his own genius supplemented the
imperfect revelations of the hierophants, so that he
became himself a master and one who expounded the
mysteries
Pythagoras defined God as a living and absolute
^ I do not know how this fable originated and the question is not
worth the pains which would be necessary to elucidate it. It is narrated
by Eliphas L6vi as matter of historical fact ; but there is no question that
M. Edouard Schurd, who owes so much to the occultist who preceded
him, would have been glad to include it in his romantic biography of
Pythagoras, if it had not been too mythical even for his purpose. He is
content as it is to suggest that the sage of Samos had studied Jewish
monotheism during a stay of twelve years at Babylon.
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The Derivations of Magic
truth clothed in light ; he defined the Word as number
manifested by form ; and he derived all things from the
Tetractys — that is to say, the tetrad. He said also that
God is supreme music, the nature of which is harmony.
Religion was, according to him, the highest expression
of justice ; medicine was the most perfect practice of
science ; the beautiful was harmony ; force, reason ;
felicity, perfection ; while truth in application consisted
in distrusting the weakness and perversity of men.
When he made his dwelling at Crotona, the magis-
trates of that city, seeing that he exercised so great an
influence over minds and hearts, were at first in some
anxiety concerning him ; but ultimately they sought his
advice. Pythagoras counselled them to cultivate the
muses and maintain the most perfect accord among
themselves, because feuds between masters fomented
rebellion among servants. Thereafter he imparted to
them his grand religious, political and social precept :
There is no evil which is not to be preferred before
anarchy — an axiom of universal application and almost
infinite depth, though one which even our own age is not
as yet sufficiently enlightened to understand.
Outside the traditions of his life, the remains of
Pythagoras are his Golden Verses and his Symbols, of
which the former have passed into commonplaces of
popular morality, so great has been their success through
the ages. They have been rendered as follows : ^ —
*' First worship the immortal gods, as they are
established and ordained by the Law. Reverence the
oath and next the heroes, full of goodness and light . .
Honour likewise thy parents, and those most nearly
* The authorship of the Golden Verses is of course a debated point ;
and it is an old suggestion that their real writer was Lysis, the pre-
ceptor of Epaminondas and an exponent of Pythagorean philosophy
about 388 B.C., his master being Referred to the beginning of the sixth
century B.C. I should add that Eliphas Levi has presented the Verses
in a metrical form of his own, which reflects the originals at a very far
distance. I have not followed this rendering but have had recourse to
that of Mr. G. R. S. Mead.
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The History of Magic
related to thee. Of all the rest of mankind, make him
thy friend who distinguishes himself by his virtue.
Always give ear tQ his mild exhortations, and take ex-
ample from his virtuous and useful actions. Avoid as
much as possible hating thy friend for a slight fault.
Understand that power is a near neighbour to necessity.
. . . Overcome and vanquish these passions — gluttony,
sloth, sensuality, and anger. Do nothing evil, neither
in the presence of others nor privately, and above all
things respect thyself. In the next place, observe justice
in thy actions and in thy words. . . . The goods of
fortune are uncertain ; as they may be acquired, so may
they likewise be lost. Always make this reflection, that
it is ordained by destiny that all men shall die. . . .
Support with patience thy lot, be it what it may, and
never repine at it ; but endeavour what thou canst to
remedy it. Consider that fate does not send the greatest
portion of these misfortunes to good men. . . . Let no
man by his words, or by his deeds seduce thee ; nor
entice thee to say or to do what is not profitable for
thyself. Consult and deliberate before thou act, that
thou mayst not commit foolish actions. For it is the part
of a miserable man to speak and to act without reflection.
But do that which will not afllict thee afterwards, nor
oblige thee to repentance. Never do anything which
thou dost not understand ; but learn all that thou
oughtest to know, and by that means thou wilt lead a
very pleasant life. In no wise neglect the health of thy
body ; but give it drink and meat in due measure, and
also the exercise of which it has need. . . . Accustom
thyself to a way of living that is neat and decent without
luxury. . . . Do only the things which cannot hurt thee,
and deliberate before thou dost them. Never sufiver
sleep to close thy eyelids, after thy going to bed, till
thou hast examined by thy reason all thy actions of the
day. Wherein have I done amiss ? What have I done }
What have I omitted that I ought to have done ? '*
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The Derivations of Magic
Up to this point the Golden Verses seem to be only
the instructions of a schoolmaster. They bear however
a very different construction. They are the preliminary
laws of magical initiation, which constitute the first part
of the Great Work, that is to say, the creation of the
perfect adept. This is proved by the following verses :
" I swear by him who has transmitted into our souls
the Sacred Quaternion, the source of nature, whose cause
is eternal. Never begin to set thy hand to any work,
till thou hast prayed the gods to accomplish what thou
art going to begin. When thou hast made this habit
familiar to thee, thou wilt know the constitution of the
Immortal Gods and of men. Even how far the different
beings extend, and what contains and binds them together
. . ., and nothing in this world shall be hid from thee.
. . . O Jupiter, our Father ! if thou wouldst deliver
men from all the evils that oppress them, shew them of
what daimon they make use. But take courage ; the
race of men is divine. . . . When, having divested thy-
self of thy mortal body, thou arrivest at the most pure
^ther, thou shalt be a god, immortal, incorruptible, and
death shall have no more dominion over thee."
Pythagoras said otherwise : "As there are three
divine concepts and three intelligible realms, so is there
a triple word, because hierarchic order is ever manifested by
the triad. There are {a) simple speech, {h) hieroglyphi-
cal speech and (r) symbolical speech. In other terms,
there is the word which expresses, there is the concealing
word and, finally, there is the word that signifies : all
hieratic intelligence is in the perfect science of these
three degrees." After this manner he enshrined doctrine
in symbols, but eschewing personifications and images
which, in his opinion, begot idolatry sooner or later.
He has been even charged with detestation of poets, but
it was the makers of bad verses to whom he forbade the
art: **Thou who hast no harp, seek not to sing in
measures," he says in his symbols. A man so great as
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The History of Magic
he could never disregard the exact correspondence be-
tween sublime thoughts and beautiful figurative expres-
sions ; indeed his own symbols are full of poetry : *' Do
not scatter the flowers of which crowns are made." In
such terms he exhorts his disciples never to diminish
glory and never to flout that which it seems good for the
world to honour.
Pythagoras was chaste, but far from commanding
celibacy to his disciples he married on his own part and
had children, A beautiful saying of his wife has re-
mained in memory : she had been asked whether purifi-
cation was not requisite in a woman after intercourse with
a man, and in such case after what lapse of time she
might regard herself as sufficiently purified to approach
holy things. She replied : " Immediately, if it be with
her husband ; but if it be with another, never."
The same severity of principles, the same purity of
manners, qualified in the school of Pythogaras for initia-
tion into the mysteries of Nature and so was attained
that empire over self by which the elementary powers
could be governed. Pythagoras possessed the faculty
which by us is termed second sight and was known then
as divination. Being with his disciples one day on the
seashore, a vessel appeared on the horizon. ** Master,"
said one of the companions, *' would it mean wealth if
they gave me the cargo carried by that ship ? " " To
you it would be more than useless," Pythagoras answered.
" In such case I would keep it for my heirs." " Would
you wish to bequeathe them two corpses ? " The vessel
came into port and proved to be bearing the body
of a man who desired to be buried in his own
country.
It is related furthermore that beasts were obedient
to Pythagoras. Once in the middle of the Olympic
Games, he signalled to an eagle winging its way through
heaven ; the bird descended, wheeling circle-wise, and
again took rapid flight at the master's token of dismissal.
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The Derivations of Magic
There was also a great bear, ravaging in Apulia ; Pytha-
goras brought it to his feet and told it to leave the
country. It disappeared accordingly and when asked to
what knowledge he owed such a marvellous power, he
answered : *' To the science of light." Animated beings
are, in fact, incarnations of light. Out of the darkness
of ugliness forms emerge and move progressively towards
the splendours of beauty ; instincts are in correspondence
with forms ; and man who is the synthesis of that
light whereof animals may be termed the analysis, is
created to command them. It has come about, how-
ever, that in place of ruling as their master, he has
become their persecutor and destroyer, so that they fear
and have rebelled against him. In the presence of an
exceptional will which is at once benevolent and direct-
ing they are t:ompletely magnetised, and a host of
modern phenomena both can and should enable us to
understand the possibility of miracles like those of
Pythagoras.
Physiognomists have observed that the majority of
men have a certain facial resemblance to one or another
animal. It may be a matter of imagination only, pro-
duced by the impression to which various physiognomies
give rise, and revealing some prominent personal charac-
teristics. A morose man is thus reminiscent of a bear, a
hypocrite has the look of a cat, and so of the rest.
These kinds of judgments are magnified in the imagina-
tion and exaggerated still further in dreams, when people
who have affected us disagreeably during the waking
state transform into animals and cause us to experience
all the agonies of nightmare. Now, animals — as much
as ourselves and more even than we — are under the rule
of imagination, while they are devoid of that judgment
by which we can check its errors. Hence they are affected
towards us according to the sympathies or antipathies
which are excited by our own magnetism. They are,
moreover, unconscious of that which underlies the human
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The History of Magic
form and they regard us only as other animals by whom
they are dominated, the dog taking his master for a dog
more perfect than himself. The secret of dominion over
animals lies in the management of this instinct. We
have seen a famous tamer of wild beasts fascinate his
lions by exhibiting a terrible countenance and acting
himself as if he were a lion enraged. Here is a literal
application of the popular proverb which tells us to howl
with the wolves and bleat with the sheep. It must also
be realised that every animal form manifests a particular
instinct, aptitude or vice. If we suffer the character of
the beast to predominate within us, we shall tend to
assume its external guise in an ever-increasing degree and
shall even come to impress its perfect image on the
Astral Light ; more even than this, when we fall into
dreams or ecstasy, we shall see ourselves as ecstatics and
somnambulists would see us and as we must appear un-
doubtedly in the eyes of animals. Let it happen in such
cases that reason be extinguished, that persistent dreams
change into madness, and we shall be turned into beasts
like Nebuchadnezzar. This explains those stories of
were-wolves, some of which have been legally established.
The facts were beyond dispute, but the witnesses were
not less hallucinated than the were-wolves themselves.^
^ Among the appendices to the second part of the Zohar there is a
short section on physiognomy, and it embodies some very curious
materials. We learn, for example, that if a man who has certain
specified characteristics of colour and feature should turn to God, a
white blemish will form on the pupil of his right eye. He who has
three semi-circular wrinkles on his forehead and whose eyes are shining
will behold the downfall of his enemies. A man who has committed an
adultery and has not repented is recognisable by a growth beneath the
navel, and thereon will be found two hairs. Should he do penance, the
hairs will disappear but the swelling will remain. A man who has
a beauty-spot on his ear will be a great master of the Law and will die
young. Two long hairs between the shoulders indicate a person who
is given to swearing incessantly in an objectless manner. It will be
seen that these details belong to a, neglected part of the science, and I
am a little at a loss to know how Eliphas L^vi would have pressed them
into his service, if he had been fully acquainted with the work which
he quotes so often.
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The Derivations of Magic
Cases of coincidence and correspondence in the dream-
state are neither rare nor extraordinary. Persons in the
state of magnetic ecstasy can see and talk to one another
from opposite ends of the earth. We ourselves may meet
someone for the first time and he or she will seem to be
an old acquaintance because we have encountered fre-
quently in dream. Life is full of these curious occurrences
and as regards the transformation of human beings into
animals, the evidences are on every side. How many
aged courtesans and gluttonous females, reduced almost
to idiocy after threading all sewers of existence, are
nothing but old she-cats egregiously enamoured of
their tom.
Pythagoras believed above all things in the soul's
immortality and in the perpetuity of life. The endless
succession of summer and winter, day and night, sleeping
and waking, illustrated amply for him the phenomenon
of death. For him also the particular immortality of
human souls consisted in persistence of memory. He is
said to have been conscious of his previous incarnations
and if the report is true, it was something suggested by
his reminiscences, for such a man as he could have been
neither impostor nor fool.^ It is probable that he came
upon former memories in his dreams, while simple
speculation and hypothesis have been constructed as posi-
tive affirmation on his part. However this may be,
his thought was great, for the real life of our individuahty
consists in memory alone. Those waters of Lethe
* It happens that the hypothesis of reincarnation was personally
unwelcome to l^liphas L^vi, and he did not know enough of Zoharic
Kabalism to realise that it is of some importance therein. The tradi-
tions concerning the teaching of Pythagoras must be taken at their
proper value, but there is no question that, according to these, he was
an important champion of what used to be called the doctrine of metem-
psychosis, understood as the soul's transmigration into successive
bodies. He himself had been {a) iCthalides, a son of Mercury ; {b)
Euphorbus, son of Panthus, who perished at the hands of Menelaus in
the Trojan war ; (r) Hermotimus, a prophet of Clazomenae, a city of
Ionia ; {d) a humble fisherman, and finally {e) the philosopher of
Samos.
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The History of Magic
pictured by the ancients were the true philosophical
type of death. The Bible appears to impart a divine
sanction to this idea when it is said in the Book of
Psalms that *' the just shall be in everlasting remem-
brance.'* ^
^ In mejnoria ceierna erit Justus.
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CHAPTER VII
THE HOLY KABALAH
Let us now have recourse to the origin of true science
by recurring to the Holy Kabalah, or tradition of the
children of Seth, taken from Chaldea by Abraham, com-
municated by Joseph to the Egyptian priesthood, in-
garnered by Moses, concealed by symbols in the Bible,
revealed by the Saviour to St. John, and embodied in
its fulness in hieratic images, analogous to those of all
antiquity, in the Apocalypse of this Apostle.
Whatsoever was in kinship with idolatry was held in
detestation by the Kabalists, which notwithstanding, God
is represented by them under a human figure, but it is
purely hieroglyphical. For them He is the intelligent,
the loving, the living infinite. He is neither the totality
of all beings, nor being in abstraction, nor a being who
is philosophically definable. He is in all things, being
more and greater than all. His very name is ineffable,
and yet this name gives expression only to the human
ideal of His divinity.^ It is not possible for man to
understand God in Himself. He is the absolute of
faith, but the absolute of reason is Being. Being is self-
existent and is because it is. The cause of Being is
Being itself. It is matter of legitimate speculation why
this or that exists, but it would be absurd to inquire
why Being is, for it would be to postulate Being as
antecedent to Being.
It is demonstrated by reason and science that the
modes of existence in Being are equilibrated in accordance
^ Eliphas Levi has forgotten that the word " ineffable " means some-
thing which cannot be expressed ; he intended to say that, according to
the Kabalists, the efficacious name was hidden.
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The History of Magic
with harmonious and hierarchic laws. Now the hierarchy
is graduated on an ascending scale, becoming more and
more monarchic. At the same time reason cannot pause
in the presence of one absolute chief without being
overwhelmed by the heights which it discerns above this
supreme king ; it takes refuge therefore in silence and
gives place to adoring faith. That which is certain, for
science and for reason alike, is that the idea of God is
the grandest, most holy and most serviceable of all
aspirations in man ; that morality and its eternal sanction
repose on this belief. In humanity it is therefore the
most real phenomenon of being, and if it were false
therefore. Nature would formulate the absurd, the void
would affirm life, and it might be said at one and the
same time that there was God and there was no God.
It is to this philosophical and incontestable reality, or
otherwise the notion of Deity, that the Kabalists give
a name, and all other names are contained therein.^ The
ciphers of this name produce all numbers and the hiero-
glyphical forms of its letters give expression to all laws
of Nature, with all that is therein. We shall not recur in
this place to that which has been dealt with already as
regards the divine Tetragram in the Doctrine of Tran-
scendental Magic ; but it may be added that the Kabalists
inscribe it in four chief ways : (i) as ninv Jhvh, which
^ All later Kabalists agree that Teiragratnjnaion is the root and
foundation of the Divine Names. In the Sephirotic system one of the
allocations makes Chokmah^ or Supernal Wisdom, to correspond with
the Yod of Tetragrammaton. K ether ^ which is the Crown, is said to
have no letter attributed thereto, because the mystery of Ain Soph, the
hidden abyss of the Godhead, is implied therein. However, the apex of
Yod does in a sense intimate concerning Kether, He is the second
letter in the Divine Tetrad, and it is ascribed to Binah, or Supernal
Understanding, wherein is all life comprehended. This is the abode
of the Shekinah in transcendence. The third letter is Vau^ and it is said
to contain the six Sephiroth from Chcsed to Yesod. The second He is
the fourth and last letter ; it corresponds to Malkuth, or the Kingdom,
wherein is the mystery of the unity of God. This is the abode of the
Shekinah in manifestation. Thus, Yod^ He, Vau, He, which we render
Jehovah, contains all the ten Sephiroih. There are, however, other
allocations.
I02
PANTACLE OF KABALISTIC LETTERS
Facing p. 102
The Derivations of Magic
IS spelt but not pronounced. The consonants are yod,
HE, VAU, HE, and they are rendered as jehovah by us
in opposition to all analogy, for the Tetragrammaton
so disfigured is composed of six letters.^ (2) »n«. adni,
meaning Lord and pronounced by us adonai.^ (3)
n^HK, AHiH, which signifies Being and is pronounced by
us EIEIE.3 (4) N^iN. AGLA, pronounced as it is written
and comprising hieroglyphically all mysteries of the
Kabalah.4
The letter Aleph^ k, is the first of the Hebrew
alphabet, and expressing as it does unity, it represents
hieroglyphically the dogma of Hermes : that which is
above is analogous to that which is below. In consonance
with this the letter has two arms, one of which points to
earth and the other to heaven with an identical gesture.
The letter Gimel^ y is third in the alphabet ; it expresses the
triad numerically, and hieroglyphically it signifies child-
birth, fruitfulness. Lamed, i), is the twelfth letter and is
an expression of the perfect cycle. Considered as a hiero-
glyphical sign it represents the circulation of the perpetual
movement and the relation of the radius to the circum-
ference. The duplicated Aleph represents the synthesis.
Therefore the name agla signifies: (i) unity, which
accomplishes by the triad the cycle of numbers, leading
back to unity. (2) The fruitful principle of Nature,
^ Eliphas Levi must have meant to say seven letters, but the point
does not signify. According to Rosenroth, the Tetragrammaton with
vowel-points is the eighth Divine Name — Hin*. The points are those of
Elohim and it is read as that Name. This signifies the concealment
of the " Ineffable " Name, on account of the exile of Israel.
- This is the Divine Name which is most in proximity to created
things. See the excursus thereon in Kabbala Denudatay vol. i. pp.
32-41.
*'' Cf. the Zohar^ Part i. folio 15a, on Exodus iii. 14: "And God said
unto Moses : I am that I am"— n''n« "W^ x\'^T\^*
* According to the Rabbinical Lexicon of Buxtorf, Agla is formed
from the initial letters of the sentence ^31N xbyh "1^33 nnN=7?^
potens es in scEculuni^ Domiiie. There seems to be no Kabalistic
authority for its explanation by Levi, and the word occurs very seldom
in the Zohar,
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The History of Magic
which is one therewith. (3) The primal truth which
fertilises science and restores it to unity. (4) Syllepsis,
analysis, science and synthesis. (5) The Three Divine
Persons Who are one God ; the secret of the Great Work,
which is the fixation of the Astral Light by a sovereign
act of will and is represented by the adepts as a serpent
pierced with an arrow, thus forming the letter Aleph,
(6) The three operations of dissolution, sublimation and
fixation, corresponding to the three essential substances.
Salt, Sulphur and Mercury — ^the whole being expressed
by the letter Gimel. (7) The twelve keys or Basil
Valentine, represented by Lamed. (8) Finally, the Work
accomplished in conformity with its principle and repro-
ducing the said principle.
Herein is the origin of that Kabalistic tradition which
comprises all Magic in a single word. To know how
this word is read and how also it is pronounced, or
literally to understand its mysteries and translate the
knowledge into action, is to have the key of miracles.
In pronouncing the word agla it is said that one must
turn to the East, which means union of intention and
knowledge with oriental tradition. It should be re-
membered further that, according to Kabalah, the perfect
word is the word realised by acts, whence comes that
expression which recurs frequently in the Bible : facere
verbum^ to make a word — that is, in the sense of per-
forming an act. To pronounce the word agla Kabal-
istically is therefore to pass all tests of initiation and
accomplish all its works.^
It has been said in the Doctrine of Transcendental
Magic that the name Jehovah resolves into seventy- two
^ According to Petrus Galatinus, in De Arcanis Catholicce VeritatiSy
the word Agla expresses the infinite power of the Divine Trinity. Like
l^liphas L^vi, he gives us the separate significance of each letter and,
like Buxtorf, he makes them the initials of the sentence already quoted,
his rendering being : Tu potens in externum Dominus. He terms Agla
Nomen Dei, for which there seems to be as much and as little authority
as there is for the suggestion that the Divina potentia is that of the
Trinity.
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The Derivations of Magic
explicatory names, called Shemahamphorash} The art
of employing these seventy-two names and discovering
therein the keys of universal science is the art which
is called by Kabalists the Keys of Solomon. As a fact,
at the end of the collections of prayers and evocations
which bear this title, there are found usually seventy-two
magical circles, making thirty-six talismans, or four times
nine, being the absolute number multiplied by the tetrad.
Each of these talismans bears two of the two-and -seventy
names, the sign emblematical of their number and that
of the four letters of Tetragrammaton to which they
correspond. From this have originated the four emble-
matical Tarot suits : the Wand, representing the Yod ;
the Cup, answering to the He ; the Sword, referable
to the Vau; and the Pentacle, in correspondence with
the final He, The complement of the denary has
been added in the Tarot, thus repeating synthetically
the character of unity.^
The popular traditions of Magic affirm that he who
possesses the Keys of Solomon can communicate with
spirits of all grades and can exact obedience on the part
of all natural forces. These Keys, so often lost and as
often again recovered, are no other than the talismans
of the seventy-two names and the mysteries of the thirty-
two hieroglyphical paths, reproduced by the Tarot. By
the aid of these signs and by their infinite combinations,
which are like those of numbers and letters, it is possible
to arrive at the natural and mathematical revelation of
all secrets of Nature, and it is in this sense that com-
munication is established with the whole hierarchy of
intelligence,
^ A very full exposition of this Name will be found in the section
entitled De Cabale HebrcEoruin^ forming part of Kircher's utagnuin opus^
the (Edipus ALgyptiacus. It is curious that a tract so important as this,
within its own measures, and written with the uttermost simplicity, does
not appear to have been translated, even into the French language.
2 I must admit that this reference escapes me. The Tarot consists
of four suits of 14 cards each and there are 22 Trumps Major, making
78 cards in all.
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The History of Magic
The Kabalists in their wisdom were on their guard
against the dreams of imagination and hallucinations of
the waking state. Therefore they avoided in particular
all unhealthy evocations which disturb the nervous
system and intoxicate reason. Makers of curious experi-
ments in phenomena of extranatural vision are no better
than the eaters of opium and hasheesh. They are
children who injure themselves recklessly. It may
happen that one is overtaken by intoxication ; we may
even so far forget ourselves voluntarily as to seek
the experience of drunkenness, but for the man who
respects himself, a single instance suffices. Count
Joseph de Maistre says that one of these days we
shall deride our present stupidity, much as we deride
the barbarity of the middle ages. What would he
think, did he see our table-turners or listen to makers
of hypotheses concerning the world of spirits } Poor
creatures that we are, we escape from one absurdity
by rushing over to its opposite. The eighteenth century
thought that it protested against superstition by denying
religion and we in return testify to the impiety of that
period by believing in old wives' fables. Is it impossible
to be a better Christian than Voltaire and still not
believe in ghosts } The dead can no more revisit this
earth which they have quitted than a child can return
into the womb of its mother.^ That which we call
death is birth into a new life. Nature does not repeat
what it has once done in the order of necessary pro-
gression through the scale of existence, and she cannot
bely her own fundamental laws. Limited by its organs
and served by these, the human soul can enter into
communication with things of the visible world only by
* The axiom has rather a convincing air, but the analogy is wrong,
and the word " return " is a blunder of popular speech. The possibility
of communication with those who have left this life is a question of the
interpenetration of worlds. To say that the human spirit departs or
comes back is a symbolic expression, like the statement that heaven is
above us.
1 06
The Derivations of Magic
the intermediation of these organs. The body is an
envelope adjusted to the physical environments in which
the soul abides here. By confining the action of the
soul it makes her activity possible. In the absence of
body the soul would be everywhere, and yet in so
attenuated a sense that it could act nowhere, but, lost
in the infinite, would be swallowed up and annihilated
in God.^ Imagine a drop of fresh water shut up in
a globule and cast in the sea ; as long as that sheath
is preserved intact, the drop of water will subsist in its
separate form, but let the globule be broken and where
shall we look for the drop in the vast sea ?
In creating spirits, God could endow them with self-
conscious personality only, by their restriction in an
envelope, so to centralise their action and by restriction
save it from being lost. When the soul separates from
the body it changes environment of necessity, since it
changes the envelope.^ It goes forth clothed only in
the astral form, or vehicle of light, ascending in virtue
of its nature above the atmosphere, as air rises from
the water in escaping from a broken vessel. We say
that the soul ascends because the vehicle ascends and
because action and consciousness are both attached
thereto.^ The atmospheric air becomes solid for luci-
form bodies which are infinitely rarer than itself, and
they could only come down by assuming a grosser
vehicle. Where would they obtain this in the region
above our atmosphere ? They could only return to
earth by means of another incarnation, and such return
would be a lapse, for they would be renouncing the
state of free spirit and renewing their novitiate. The
* The analogy is again wrong and the creation of a materialistic mind.
The return of the soul to God is not annihilation but life for evermore,
and it is union with all life.
^ The soul sheds one envelope, in which it has prepared another.
^ This expression may tend to confusion. The consciousness and
activity of the soul are manifested by means of that vehicle in which it
happens to reside. It is not they that belong to the vehicle, but it is
the vehicle that is used by them.
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The History of Magic
possibility of such a return is not admitted, moreover,
by the catholic religion.
The doctrine here set forth is formulated by the
Kabalists in a single axiom : The spirit clothes itself
to come down and unclothes itself to go up. The life
of intelligence is ascensional. In the body of its mother,
the child has a vegetative life and draws nourishment
through a cord to which it is attached, as the tree is
attached to the earth by its root and is also nourished
thereby. When the child passes from vegetative to
instinctive and animal life, the cord breaks and hence-
forth he has free motion. When the child becomes man,
he escapes from the trammels of instinct and can act
as a reasonable being. When the man dies, he is
liberated from the law of gravitation, by which he has
been previously bound to earth. When the soul has
expiated its offences, it grows strong enough to emerge
from the exterior darkness of the terrestrial atmosphere
and mount towards the sun.^ The unending ascent of
the sacred ladder begins therein, for the eternity of the
elect cannot be a state of idleness; they pass from
virtue to virtue, from bliss to bliss, from victory to
victory, from glory to glory. There is no break in
the chain, and those of the superior degrees can still
exercise an influence on those who are below, but it is
in harmony with the hierarchic order and after the same
way that a king who rules wisely does good to the
humblest of his subjects. From stage to stage, the
prayers arise and the graces pour down, never mistaking
the path. But spirits who have once gone up cannot
again come down, for in proportion to their ascent the
zones solidify below them. The great gulf is fixed,
says Abraham, in the parable of the rich man, so that
they which would pass from hence to yjou cannot."
^ There is no Kabalistic authority for the sun as the abode of souls.
^ Kabalism is silent on the question of communication with those
who have left this life, though tacitly it must admit the possibility on the
io8
The Derivations of Magic
Ecstasy may so exalt the powers of the star-body
that it can draw the material body after it, thus proving
that the destiny of the soul is to ascend. The stories
of aerial levitation are possible, but there is no instance
of a man being able to live under the earth or in
water. It would be not less impossible for a soul in
separation from the body to subsist for a single moment
in the density of our atmosphere. Therefore departed
beings are not about us, as spiritists suppose. Those
whom we love may see us and to us may still manifest,
but only by mirage and reflection in the common mirror
of the Astral Light. Furthermore they can take interest
no longer in mortal things ; they hold to us only by that
which is highest in our feelings and is in correspondence
with their eternal mode.^
Such are the revelations of Kabalism as imbedded in
the mysterious book of the Zohar ; for science they are
of course hypothetical, but they rest on a series of exact
inductions and these inductions are drawn from facts
uncontested by science.
We are brought at this point into touch with one of
the most dangerous secrets in the domain of Magic',
being the more than probable hypothesis concerning the
existence of those fluidic larva known in ancient theurgy
under the name of elementary spirits. Something has
been said upon the subject in The Doctrine and. Ritual of
Transcendental Magic, and the ill-starred Abb6 de Villars,
who jested with these terrible revelations, paid for his
evidence of the case of Samuel. The axiom that the spirit clothes
itself to come down and unclothes itself to go up is one of the so-called
conclusiones Kabbalisticce of Picus de Mirandula, but it is found
substantially in the Zohar^ and as regards the descent, this is just what
occurs ex hypoihesi in the phenomena of spiritistic materialisations. As
regards the parable of the rich man, it has nothing to do with the
question of so-called spirit-return ; those who were in the bosom of
Abraham had as much left this life as those who were in Sheol.
* It depends on those who have left us. What of the earthly and the
evil ? Why should the bond between them and us — supposing that
there is a bond — be that of our highest feelings?
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The History of Magic
imprudence with his life.^ The reason that the secret is
dangerous is because it verges on the great magical
arcanum. The truth is that the evocation of elementary
spirits implies power to coagulate fluids by a projection
of the Astral Light, and this power, so directed, can pro-
duce only disorders and misfortunes, as will be shewn at
a later stage. Meanwhile, the grounds of the hypothesis
and the evidence of its probability follow : Spirit is
everywhere, and is that which animates matter ; it
overcomes the force of gravity by perfecting the vehicle
which is its form. We see everywhere around us how
form develops with instincts, till intelligence and beauty
are attained : these are effbrts of the light attracted by
the charm of the spirit ; they are part of the mystery of
progressive and universal generation.
The light is the efficient agent of forms and life,
because it is both motion and heat. When fixed and
polarised about a centre, it produces a living being and
draws thereafter the plastic substance needed to perfect
and preserve it. This plastic substance is, in the last
analysis, formed of earth and water and, with good
reason, is denominated slime of the earth in the Bible.
But this light is in nowise spirit, as believed by the
Indian hierophants and all schools of GOetia : it is only the
spirit's instrument. Nor is it the body of the protoplastes^
though so regarded by theurgists of the school of Alex-
andria. It is the first physical manifestation of the
Divine Breath. God creates it eternally and man, who is
in the image of God, modifies and seems to multiply it.^
^ The fact is that he was assassinated, the inference is that it was by
or at the instance of those whose secrets he was supposed to have
betrayed. The murderers, also by inference, were said to be Brethren
of the Rosy Cross. It may be mentioned that the Comte de Gabalis
contains the theory of communication with elementary spirits, being
those of earth, air, nre and water ; but the mode of treatment suggests
that it is a jeu d esprit. The Nouveaux Entretiens sur les Sciences
Secrhes^ Les Gerties Assistants and Le Gnome Irreconcilable y which are
supposed sequels, are forgeries^ of later periods.
2 Elsewhere in his works Eliphas Levi says that the Astral Light is
(a) the Odo{ the Hebrews, {b) an electro-magnetic ether, {c) a vital and
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The Derivations of Magic
Prometheus, says the classical fable, having stolen
fire from heaven, gave life thereby to images formed of
earth and water, for which crime he was blasted and
chained by Jupiter. Elementary spirits, say the Kaba-
lists in their most secret books, are children of the
solitude of Adam, born of his dreams when he yearned
for the woman who as yet had not been given to him by
God.^ According to Paracelsus, the blood lost at certain
regular periods by the female sex and the nocturnal
emissions to which male celibates are subject in dream
people the air with phantoms.^ The hypothetical origin
of larva^ according to the masters, is here indicated
with sufficient clearness and further explanation may
be spared.
Such larva have an aerial body formed from vapour
of blood, for which reason they are attracted towards spilt
blood and in older days drew nourishment from the
smoke of sacrifices. They are those monstrous ofl?spring
of nightmare which used to be called incuhi and succubi.
When sufficiently condensed to be visible, they are as a
vapour tinged by the reflection of an image ; they have
no personal life, but they mimic that of the magus who
evokes them, as the shadow images the body. They
collect above all about idiots and those immoral creatures
luminous caloric, {d) the instrument of life, {e) the instrument of the
omnipotence of Adam, (/) the universal glass of visions. It follows the
law of magnetic currents, is subject to fixation by a supreme projection
of will-power, is the first envelope of the soul, and the mirror of imagina-
tion. He terms it also magnetised electricity. It would seem that his
contemporary disciples in France have abandoned the theory of their
master, or perhaps I should say rather its doctrinal part. On the other
hand, it has perhaps reappeared, under theosophical auspices, as the
reservoir of the akasic records.
* There are also references to Lilith, a demon-wife of Adam, in the
Zohar; she is called the instigator of chastisements and was really
the wife of Samael, the evil angel. It may be added that, according to
Paracelsus, the elementaries non sunt progenia ex A damo. See Liber
de Nymphis, Sylphis^ Pygmceis et Salamandris^ Tract. /, cap. i.
■ In respect of male celibates, the physiological particulars referred
to are the blind yearning of Nature after the nuptial state and, with a
tentative reserve in respect of the life of sanctity, it is shame to those
who neglect the warning or turn it to the account of sin.
Ill
The History of Magic
whose isolation abandons them to irregular habits. The
cohesion of parts being very slight in their fantastic
bodies, they fear the open air, a great fire and above all
the point of a sword. They become, in a manner, as
vapourous appendages to the real bodies of their parents,
since they live only by drawing on the life either of those
who have created them or those who appropriate them
by their evocation. It may com« about in this manner
that if these shadows of bodies be wounded, their parent
may be maimed in real earnest, even as the unborn child
may be hurt and disfigured by the imaginations of its
mother. The world is full of such phenomena ; they
justify these strange revelations and can only be explained
thereby.
Such larva draw the vital heat of persons in good
health and they drain those who are weak rapidly.
Heace come the histories of vampires, things of terrific
reality which have been substantiated from time to time,
as it is well known. This explains also why in the
neighbourhood of mediums, who are persons obsessed by
larva^ one is conscious of a cooling in the atmosphere.
Seeing that their existence is due to the illusions of
imagination and divagation of the senses, such creatures
never manifest in the presence of a person who can unveil
the mystery of their monstrous birth.
112
BOOK II
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF
DOGMAS
H
BOOK II
FORMATION AND DEFELOPMENT OF DOGMAS
3— BETH
CHAPTER I
PRIMITIVE SYMBOLISM OF HISTORY
To explain Holy Scripture from the religious and dog-
matic standpoint forms no part of our warrant. Subject
above all things to the hierarchic order, we surrender
theology to the doctors of the Church and we render
to human science whatsoever is included in the domain
of experience and reason. Therefore on those occasions
when we may appear to be risking a new application of
some biblical passage, it is always with proper respect for
ecclesiastical decisions. We do not dogmatise on our
own part, and we submit our observations and researches
to the lawful authorities.
On reading the earliest history of the human race
in the sacred work of Moses, that which strikes one at
once is the description of the Earthly Paradise, which is
summarised in the figure of a perfect pantacle. It is
circular or square, since it is watered equally by four
rivers arranged in the form of a cross, while in the centre
are found two trees representing knowledge and life,
stable intelligence and progressive motion, wisdom and
creation.^ The serpent of Asclepios and Hermes is
^ This is one construction of the symbol and is a little tinctured by
Eliphas Levi's sincere admiration for the understanding which lay behind
the Romance of the Rose, The text of Genesis says that a river rose to water
the Garden "and from thence it was parted and became into four heads,"
or four sources of rivers. These rivers did not water the Garden but
the world without, and their names are familiar in the geography of the
"5
The History of Magic
coiled about the Tree ; beneath its shadow are the man
and woman, active and passive, intelligence and love.
The serpent, symbolising the primal attraction and the
central fire of the earth, tempts her who is the weaker, and
she causes the man to succumb ; yet to the serpent she
yields only in order that she may overcome it subse-
quently : one day she will crush the head of it by giving
a Saviour to the world. All science is represented in
this admirable scene.^ The man abdicates the realm of
intelligence by yielding to the solicitations of the sensitive
part ; he profanes the fruit of knowledge, which should
be the sustenance of the soul, by applying it to the uses
of unjust and material satisfaction; he loses in con-
sequence the sense of harmony and of truth. He is
clothed thereafter with the skin of a beast, because the
physical form takes shape sooner or later, and invariably,
in correspondence to moral dispositions. He is cast cut
of the circle which is watered by the four rivers of life,
and a cherub, armed with an ever-moving, burning sword,
prevents his return into the domain of unity.
As we have observed in the T)oc trine of MagtCy Vol-
taire discovered that the Hebrew word for cherub
signifies a bull and was highly amused at the story. He
might have been less entertained, had he recognised in
the angel with the head of a bull, the image of an
obscure symbolism and in the revolving sword of fire
those flashes of ill-understood and illusory truth which
provided, after the Fall, a pretext to the idolatry of
ancient world. The mystic pantacle of Eden shews therefore an enclosure
constituted by a ring or circle of water, an island like that of Avalon,
which is another Garden of Apples, and the waters flow out therefrom
towards the four points of heaven : they form therefore a cross, and in
the centre of that cross is the Paradise. If the reader will bear in mind
that, according to the secret tradition, Adam was set to grcsw roses in
the Garden of Eden, he will understand at what place of the world the
symbolism of the Rosy Cross takes its origin.
^ This is true, but it is only the science of this world in the sense
that the greater includes the lesser. It is really the supernal knowledge
which is called Daath in Kabalism, arising from the union of Chokmah
and Binahy or Wisdom and Understanding.
ii6
Formation and Development of Dogmas
nations. The burning sword typified also that light
which man knew no longer how to direct, so that, instead
of governing its force, he was made subject to its fatal
influence. The great magical work, understood in an
absolute sense, is the conquest and direction of the
burning sword, and the cherub is the angel or soul of
the earth, represented invariably under the figure of a
bull in the Ancient Mysteries. Hence in Mithraic
symbolism, the master of light is seen vanquishing the
bull of earth and plunging into his flank that sword
which sets free the life, represented by drops of blood.
The first consequence of Eve's sin is the death of
Abel. By separating love from understanding she sepa-
rated it also from power, and this, reduced to blindness
and in the bondage of earthly desires, became jealous
of love and slew it. The children of Cain perpetuated
the crime of their father ; the daughters whom they
brought into the world were disastrously beautiful but,
being void of love, they were born for the damnation
of angels^ and for the scandal of the descendants of
Seth.
After the deluge and as a sequel to the prevarication
of Ham, some part of the mystery of which has been
already indicated, the children of men attempted to
realise an insensate project, by constructing an universal
pantacle and palace. It was a vast experiment in social-
^^ istic equality, and the phalansterium of Fourier is a sorry
!/ conception in comparison with the tower of Babel.* The
latter was an active protestation against the hierarchy of
^ The commentary of the Zohar on Genesis, vi. 2 — " the sons of God
saw the daughters of men that they were fair" — affirms that the angels
were cast out of heaven as soon as they had conceived the desire therein
suggested. Aza and Azael were the chiefs of these fallen spirits. Sub-
sequently they taught Magic to men.
^ The design of the builders, according to the Zohar ^ Part I, Fol. 75*,
was to abandon the celestial domain for that of Satan. They desired to
rebuild heaven, apparently in the likeness of their own evil desires.
They were the sarne quality of souls as the "giants in the earth in those
days " and " the mighty men which were of old, men of renown." See
Genesis, c. vi. v. 4 and Zohar, Part I, Fol. 25^
117
The History of Magic
knowledge, a citadel built against floods and tempests,
a promontory from the elevation of which the deified
people would soar above the atmosphere and its com-
motions. But one does not ascend to knowledge on
ladders of stone ; the hierarchic degrees of the spirit are
not built with mortar like the stories of a tower.
Against such a materialised hierarchy anarchy itself pro-
tested, and men ceased to understand one another — a
fatal lesson and one misinterpreted utterly by those who
in our own days have dreamed of another Babel. The
negations of equality give answer to doctrines which are
hierarchic only in the sense of brutality and materialism.
Whenever the human race builds such a tower, the
summit will be contested and the multitude will desert
the base. To satisfy all ambitions, the summit must be
broader than the base and the result an unstable edifice
which will collapse at the smallest shock.
The scattering of men was the first result of the
curse pronounced against the profane descendants of
Ham, but the race of Canaan bore in a particular manner
the burden of the malediction in question, which at a
later period made all their posterity anathema.^ That
chastity which is the guardian of the family is also the
distinctive character of hierarchic initiations ; profanation
and revolt are always unclean ; they tend to promiscuity
and infanticide. Desecration of the mysteries of birth
and destruction of children were the basis of the religions
of ancient Palestine, given over to the horrible rites of
Black Magic ; the black god of India, the monstrous
priapic Rutrem, reigned therein under the name of
Belphegor. The Talmudists and the Platonic Jew Philo
^ Zoharic Kabalism was dissatisfied with the visitation of the offence
of Ham on his apparently innocent son, Canaan, and it accounted for the
malediction pronounced upon the latter by the fact that he had removed
the testes from the person of his grandfather Noah. On the surface this
is a ridiculous enormity, but it is a concealed intimation that the whole
Noetic myths is, like Paradise itself, a mystery of sex shadowed forth
in symbolism.
ii8
Formation and Development of Dogmas
recite things so shameful respecting the worship of this
idol, that they appeared incredible to the learned lawyer
Seldenus. It is said to have been a bearded image, with
gaping mouth and a tongue like a gigantic phallus ; the
worshippers exposed themselves without shame in the
presence of such a visage and presented offerings of
excrement. The idols of Moloch and Chamos were
murderous machines which sometimes crushed unfor-
tunate little children against their brazen breasts and
sometimes consumed them in their red-hot arms. There
was dancing to the sound of trumpets and tambourines,
so that the cries of the victims were stifled, and these
dances were led by the wretched mothers. Incest,
sodomy and bestiality were the authorised practices
among these infamous people, and even formed part of
the sacred rites.
Such is the fatal consequence of doing violence to
universal harmony ; one does not sin against truth with
impunity. In revolt against God, man is driven to the
outrage of Nature, despite himself. Identical causes
ever produce the same efi^ects, and the Sabbath of the
Sorcerers in the middle ages was but a repetition of the
festivals of Chamos and Belphegor. It is against such
crimes that a decree of eternal death is pronounced by
Nature itself. Worshippers of black gods, apostles of
promiscuity, preachers of public wantonness, enemies of
the family and hierarchy, anarchists in religion and
politics are enemies of God and humanity ; not to isolate
them from the world is to consent that the world shall
be poisoned, or such at least was the view of inquisitors ;
but we are far on our own part from desiring to re-
establish the cruel executions of the middle ages. In
proportion as society shall become more truly Christian
it will realise more fully that we must heal those who
are diseased and not destroy them ; now, criminal instincts
are surely the most appalling of mental maladies.
It must not be forgotten that transcendental Magic
119
The History of Magic
is called the Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art ; in Egypt,
Greece and Rome it shared the grandeur and decadence
of the kingdom and the priesthood. Every philosophy
which is at issue with the cultus and its mysteries is
baneful to the great political powers, for these, in the
eyes of the multitude, lose in grandeur if they cease to
be symbols of Divine power. Every crown is broken
which comes into collision with the tiara. The eternal
dream of Prometheus is to steal fire from heaven and
cast down the gods therefrom. The popular Prometheus,
unbound on Caucasus by Hercules, who typifies labour,
will ever bear about with him his rivets and chains ; he
will carry his undying vulture, fastened on his gaping
wound, till he shall learn obedience at the feet of Him,
who, being born the King of kings and God of gods, has
elected in His turn to be nailed in hands and feet and
pierced in the side for the conversion of all rebellious
spirits.
By opening the career of power to intrigue, republican
institutions endangered the principles of the hierarchy.
The task of forming Kings was confided no longer to
the hierarchy and was either replaced by right of inherit-
ance— which abandons the throne to the unequal chances
of birth — or by popular election — which sets aside reli-
gious influence to establish the monarchy on a basis of
republican principles. Those governments which pre-
sided successively over the triumphs and humiliations of
Greek and Roman states were formed in this manner.
The science reserved to the sanctuaries fell into neglect,
and men of boldness or genius, who had not been accepted
by those who dispense initiation, devised another science
in opposition to that of the priests, substituting doubt
or denial for the secrets of the temple. In the excess
of their adventurous imagination, such philosophers were
landed quickly in absurdity and laid upon Nature the
blame which belonged to their own systems. Heraclitus
fell a-weeping, Democritus took refuge in laughter, and
I20
:^
A
^
*
,''
^
y
U PieireCabiqne
'*>>.^— ^
"^^u!^^
THE TWENTY-FIRST KEY OF THE TAROT, SURROUNDED BY
MYSTIC AND MASONIC SEALS
Facing p, 120
Formation and Development of Dogmas
the one was a fool like the other. Pyrrhon ended by
believing in nothing, which can scarcely exonerate him
for the fact that he knew nothing. Into this philo-
sophical chaos Socrates brought a certain light and good
sense, by affirming the existence of pure and simple
morality. But what does morality profit in the absence
of religion ? The abstract Deism of Socrates was inter-
preted by the people as atheism. It came about, how-
ever, that Plato, the disciple of Socrates, attempted to
supply that system of doctrine which was wanting in the
latter and of which indeed he had never dreamed.
The doctrine of Plato was epoch-making in the his-
tory of human genius, but it was not his own invention,
for, realising that there is no truth apart from religion, he
went to consult the priests of Memphis and to obtain
initiation into their Mysteries. He is even credited with
a knowledge of the Jewish sacred books. ^ In Egypt,
however, his initiation could have been imperfect only,
for the priests by that time had forgotten themselves
the import of their primeval hieroglyphics, as is indicated
by the history of that priest who spent three days in
deciphering a hieratic inscription found in the tomb
of Alcmene and sent by Agesilaus, King of Sparta.
Cornuphis, who was doubtless the most learned among
the hierophants, consulted the old collections of signs
and characters ; in the end he found that the inscription
was in the script of proteus^ being the Grecian name of
the Book of Thoth^ consisting of movable hieroglyphics,
capable of variations as numerous as there are possible
combinations of characters, numbers and elementary
figures. But the Book of Thoth^ being the key of oracles
and the elementary work on science, should not have
involved such long research before its signs were identified,
if Cornuphis had been really proficient in the Sacerdotal
^ It should be needless to say that this is a mere presumption and
is not even founded on any legend concerning the travels of Plato. He
is said to have been in Egypt for a period which has been estimated at
thirteen years.
121
The History of Magic
Art. Another proof that primeval truths were obscured
at this period is the fact that the oracles which registered
their protest on the subject were in a style that was
understood no longer.
After his return from Egypt, Plato was journeying
with Simmias on the confines of Caria when he was met
by some men of Delos, who begged him to interpret an
oracle of Apollo. It declared that to make an end of
the woes in Greece the cubic stone must be doubled.
The attempt had been made with a stone kept in the
temple of Apollo ; but the work of doubling it on every
side resulted in a polyhedron having twenty-five surfaces ;
to restore the cubic form they had to increase it twenty-
six times the original volume of the stone, by a process
of successive doubling. Plato sent back the emissaries
to the mathematician Eudoxus,^ saying that the oracle
had counselled the study of geometry. Whether he
did not himself understand the deep sense of the symbol
or disdained to unveil it to the ignorant are points which
must be left to conjecture ; but that which is certain is
that the cubic stone and its multiplication explains all
secrets of sacred numbers, including the mystery of per-
petual motion, hidden by adepts and pursued by fools
under the name of squaring the circle.^ By this cubic
agglomeration of twenty-six cubes about a single central
cube, the oracle indicated to the Delians not only the
elements of geometry but the key of creative harmonies,
explained by the inter-relation of forms and numbers.
* He was a disciple of Plato who is supposed not only to have been
illustrious for his knowledge of geometry but to have paid the usual
pilgrim's visit to Egypt and to have returned an adept in astronomy.
* We have, unhappily, to remember that Eliphas Ldvi himself wrote
a great deal, and assuredly to little purpose, on the subject of squaring
the circle and on perpetual motion. Elsewhere he tells us that the
revolution of a square about its centre describes a circle, and thus the
circle is squared. He also invented, in imagination, a clock which
wound itself up in the process of running itself down, and this was per-
petual motion — presumably, unless the mechanism happened to stop
working or to wear itself out. The reader may settle for himself whether
in these phantasies he was in hiding like an adept or pursuing like a fool.
122
Formation and Development of Dogmas
The plan of all great allegorical temples throughout
antiquity is found in the multiplication {a) of the cube
by the cross, {b) about which a circle is described, and
then {c) the cubic cross moving in a globe. These
notions, which are rendered more intelligible by a
diagram, have been handed on to our own days in
Masonic initiations, and they are a perfect justification
of the name attributed to the modern societies in ques-
tion, for they are also the root- principles of architecture
and the science of building.
The Delians thought to answer the geometrical ques-
tion by reducing their multiplication by half, but they
had already obtained eight times the volume of their
cubic stone. For the rest, the number of their experi-
ments may be extended at will, for the story itself is
probably a problem set to his disciples by Plato. If
the utterance of the oracle has to be taken as a fact, we
can find a still deeper meaning in it : to double the cubic
stone is to extract the duad from unity, form from idea,
action from thought. It is to realise in the world the
exactitude of eternal mathematics, to establish politics
on the basis of exact sciences, to harmonise religious
dogma with the philosophy of numbers.
Plato has more eloquence but less depth than
Pythagoras ; he aspires to reconcile the philosophy of
logicians with the immutable dogmas of seers ; he does
not seek to vulgarise but would reconstruct science. So
was his philosophy destined at a later date to provide
dawning Christianity with theories prepared beforehand
and with vivifying doctrines. Notwithstanding, how-
ever, that he based his theorems on mathematics,
Plato was poet rather than geometrician ; he was rich
in harmonious forms and was prodigal of marvellous
hypotheses. Aristotle, who was a calculating genius
exclusively, referred everything to debate in the schools ;
he made everything subject to the demonstrations of
numeral evolutions and the logic of calculations. Ex-
123
The History of Magic
eluding the faith of Platonism, he sought to prove all
and likewise to comprehend all in his categories ; he
turned the triad into syllogism and the binary into
enthymeme. For him the chain of being became a sorites.
He reduced everything to an abstraction and reasoned on
everything ; being itself passed into an abstraction in his
process and was lost amidst the hypotheses of ontology.
Plato was destined to inspire the Fathers of the Church ;
Aristotle to be the master of mediaeval scholastics ; God
knows what clouds gathered about this logic which had
no faith in anything and yet set out to explain all.
A second Babel was in plan and another confusion of
tongues was at no far distance. Being is being and in
being is the reason of being. In the beginning is the
Word and the Word, or Logos, is logic formulated in
speech, or spoken reason. The Word is in God and
the Word is God Himself manifested to intelligence.
But this is precisely a truth which exceeds all philosophies
and is that, also precisely, which must be believed, under
the penalty of knowing nothing and falling back into
the irrational doubt of Pyrrho. As guardian of faith,
the priesthood rests entirely on this ground of science,
and we are compelled to salute in its teaching the Divine
principle of the Eternal Word.
124
CHAPTER II
MYSTICISM
The legitimacy of Divine Right is so rooted in the
priesthood that true priesthood does not exist apart from
it. Initiation and consecration are a veritable heritage.
So is the sanctuary inviolable on the part of the profane
and so also it cannot be seized by sectarians. For the
same reason the glorious lights of divine revelation are
diffused in accordance with supreme reason, because
they come down in order and harmony. God does not
enlighten the world by means of meteors and flashes,
but He causes every planetary system to gravitate about
its particular sun. It is this very harmony which vexes
certain souls, who have grown impatient with duty, and
it is thus that people come forward to pose as reformers
of morals, having failed in coercing revelation to concur
with their vices. Like Rousseau, they exclaim : *' If
God has spoken, why have I heard nothing ? '* And
then presently they add : ''He has spoken, but it is to
me.'' Such is their dream, and they end by believing
it themselves. So do the makers of sects begin, and
these are fomenters of religious anarchy : we would by
no means condemn them to the flames, but it is certainly
desirable to intern them as suflTerers from contagious
folly. It is precisely in this manner that those mystic
schools were founded which brought about the pro-
fanation of science. We have seen how the Indian
fakirs attained their so-called uncreated light, that is to
say, by the help of erethism and cerebral congestion.
Egypt had also its sorcerers and enchanters, while
Thessaly, in the days of Greece, swarmed with conjura-
125
The History of Magic
tions and withcraft. To enter into direct communica-
tion with deities is to suppress the priesthood and subvert
the basis of the throne — a fact which is realised keenly by
the anarchic instinct of pretended illuminism. It was by
the allurement of licence that such conspirators looked
to recruit disciples, giving absolution beforehand to every
scandal in manners, on the condition of strictness in revolt
and energy in protestation against sacerdotal legitimacy.^
The Bacchantes, who dismembered Orpheus, believed
themselves inspired by a god, and they sacrificed the
great hierophant to their deified drunkenness. The
orgies of Bacchus were mystical tumults ; the apostles
of mania have always had recourse to d' io dered move-
ments, frenetic agitations and horrible convulsions. From
the effeminate priesthood of Bacchus to the Gnostics ;
from whirling dervishes to epileptics at the tomb of
Paris the deacon ; the characteristics of superstition and
fanatic exaltation have been always the same. It has
been invariably under the pretext of purifying doctrine
and in the name of an exaggerated spiritualism that the
mystics of all times have materialised the symbols of
the cultus. It has been the same precisely with those
who have profaned the science of the Magi, for tran-
scendental Magic, as it is needful to remember, is the
primeval priestly art. It condemns all that is done
outside the lawful hierarchy, and it justifies the con-
demnation— though not the torture — of sectarians and
sorcerers. The two classes are here connected inten-
tionally, because all heretics have been evokers of spirits
and phantoms, whom they have foisted upon the world
as gods ; all have arrogated to themselves the power of
working miracles in support of their falsehoods. On
these evidences they were all practisers of Goetic, that
is to say, of Black Magic.
^ The only remark which is requisite on this chapter is that it involves
throughout an abuse of the word Mysticism, which has nothing to do
with religious anarchy, sects or magic. See, however, my preface to the
present translation.
126
Formation and Development of Dogmas
Anarchy being the point of departure and the palmary
characteristic of dissident mysticism, religious concord
is impossible between sectarians, and yet they are in
astonishing unanimity upon a single point, being the
hatred of hierarchic and lawful authority. This in
reality is the whole root of their religion, as it is the
sole bond which links them one to another. It is ever
the crime of Ham, contempt of the family principle
and outrage offered to the father, whose nakedness and
shame they expose with sacrilegious mirth. All the
anarchic mystics confuse the Intellectual with the Astral
Light ; they worship the serpent instead of doing honour
to that dutiful and pure wisdom which crushes its head.
So are they intoxicated by vertigo and so fall inevitably
into the abyss of folly.
All fools are visionaries and may no doubt believe
sincerely that they work wonders ; indeed hallucination
is contagious and things inexplicable occur, or seem to
occur, frequently enough in their vicinity. Moreover,
the phenomena of the Astral Light in the excess of
its attraction or projection are themselves of a kind to
confuse those who are half-educated. It is centralised
in bodies and, as the result of violent molecular dis-
tention, it imparts to them so high a degree of elasticity
that bones may be twisted and muscles stretched out of
all measure. It forms whirlpools and waterspouts, so
to speak, which levitate the heaviest bodies and can
sustain them in the air for a length of time proportionate
to the force of the projection. The sufferers feel on
the point of bursting and cry for compression or per-
cussion to relieve them. The most violent blows and
the utmost constriction, being counterpoised by the
fluidic tension, cause neither bruises nor wounds and
relieve instead of crushing the patient.
As fools hold physicians in horror, so the hallucinated
mystics detest wise men ; they flee them in the first place
and afterwards persecute them blindly, as if against their
127
The History of Magic
own will. In so far as they are mild and indulgent, it
is in respect of vices; towards reason in submission to
authority they are implacable ; the most tolerant of
heretics in appearance will be seized with fury and hatred,
if conformity and the hierarchy are mentioned. Hence
heresies have led to disturbances invariably. The false
prophet must slay if he cannot pervert. He clamours
for tolerance towards himself but takes good care in
what sense it shall be extended to others. Protestants
were loud in their outcries against the faggots and pyres
of Rome at the very time that John Calvin, on the
warrant of his private judgment, condemned Servetus to
be burnt. The crimes of the Donatists, Circumcisionists,
and others too many for enumeration, drove Catholic
rulers into excess and caused the Church to abandon
those who were guilty to the secular arm. Would it
not be thought that Vaudois, Albigensians and Hussites
were lambs if one gave heed to the groans of irreligion ?
Where was the innocence of those darksome Puritans of
Scotland and England who brandished the dagger in
one hand and their Bible in the other, while preaching
the extermination of Catholics? One only Church in
the midst of so many reprisals and horrors has always
postulated and in principle at least has maintained its
hatred of blood : this is the hierarchic and legitimate
Church.^
Now, in admitting the possibility and actuality of dia-
bolical miracles, that Church recognises the existence of
a natural force which can be applied for good or evil ;
and hence it has decided in its great wisdom that although
sanctity of doctrine can legalise miracle, the latter of itself
can never authorise novelties in religious teaching. To
say that God, Whose laws are perfect and never falsify
^ The history of persecution may be left to speak for itself on the
validity of this plea and the postulated principle mentioned by Eliphas
Levi may even be thought to have concealed a stab from behind in the
dark. In any case, the alleged horror of blood is best illustrated by
the method of pyre and faggot.
128
( »«« /uZt-tj yii^m/)
TYFHON
EGYPTIAN SYMBOLS OF TYPHON
Facing f>. 128
Formation and Development of Dogmas
themselves, makes use of a natural instrument to produce
effects which to us seem supernatural — this is to affirm the
supreme reason and immutable power of God ; it is to
exalt our notion of His providence ; and sincere Catholics
should realise that such view by no means challenges His
intervention in those marvels which operate in favour of
truth. The false miracles caused by astral congestions
have invariably an anarchic and immoral tendency, be-
cause disorder invokes disorder. So also the gods and
familiars of heretics are athirst for blood and commonly
extend their protection at the price of murder. The
idolaters of Syria and Judea drew oracles from the heads
of children torn from the bodies of the poor little victims.
They dried these heads and, having placed beneath the
tongues a golden lamen bearing unknown characters, they
fixed them in the hollows of walls, built up a kind of
body beneath them composed of magical plants secured
by bands, lighted a lamp at the foot of the frightful
idols, burnt incense before them and proceeded to their
religious consultation. They believed that the heads
spoke, and the anguish of the last cries had doubtless
distracted their imaginations ; moreover, as said already,
blood attracts larvae. The ancients, in their infernal sac-
rifices, were' accustomed to dig a pit, which they filled
with warm and smoking blood ; then from all the deep
places of the night they beheld feeble and pallid shadows
ascending, descending, creeping and swarming about the
cavity. With a sword's point steeped in the same blood,
they traced the circle of evocation and kindled fire of
laurel, alder and cypress wood, on altars crowned with
asphodel and vervain. The night seemed to grow colder
and still more dark ; the moon was hidden behind clouds ;
and they heard the feeble rustling of phantoms crowding
about the circle, while dogs howled piteously over the
country-side.
All must be dared in order to achieve all — such was
the axiom of enchantments and their associated horrors.
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The History of Magic
The false magicians were banded together by crime and
believed that they could intimidate others when they had
contrived to terrify themselves. The rites of Black
Magic have remained revolting like the impious worships
it produced ; this was the case indifferently in the associa-
tion of criminals who conspired against the old civilisa-
tions and among the barbaric races. There was always
the same passion for darkness ; there were the same
profanations, the same sanguinary processes. Anarchic
Magic is the cultus of death. The sorcerer devotes him-
self to fatality, abjures reason, renounces the hope of
immortality, and then sacrifices children. He forswears
marriage and is given over to barren debauch. On such
conditions he enjoys the plenitude of his mania, is made
drunk with iniquity till he believes that evil is omnipotent
and, converting his hallucinations i/tto reality, he thinks
that his mastery has power to evoke at pleasure all death
and Hades.
Barbarian words and signs unknown, or even utterly
unmeaning, are the best in Black Magic.^ Hallucination
is insured more readily by ridiculous practices and imbe-
cile evocations than by rites or formula which keep in-
telligence in a waking state. Du Potet says that he has
tested the power of certain signs on ecstatics, and those
which are published in his occult book, with precaution
and mystery, are in analogy, if not absolutely identical,
with pretended diabolical signatures found in old editions
of the Grand Grimoire.^ The same causes always pro-
duce the same effects, and there is nothing that is new
beneath the moon of sorcerers, any more than under the
sun of sages.
* " Change not the barbarous names of evocation," says one of the
oracles attributed to Zoroaster, as we have seen, and the reason given
is because of their " ineffable power." This was the true Zoroaster of
6liphas L^vi, and he was not, ex hypothesis an exponent of'Black Magic.
" Barbarian words and signs unknown " are not less in favour with the
so-called white variety.
* See my Book of Ceremonial Magic ^ pp. 100-102, for a study of this
Grimoire.
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
The state of permanent hallucination is death or
abdication of consciousness, and one is then surrendered
to all the chances comprised by the fatality of dreams.
Every remembrance begets its own reflection, every evil
desire creates an image, every remorse breeds a nightmare.
Life becomes that of an animal, but of a peevish and
tormented animal ; the sense of morality and of time is
alike absent ; realities exist no longer ; it is a general dance
in the whirlpool of insensate forms. Sometimes an hour
seems protracted over centuries, and again years may fly
with an hour's swiftness.
Rendered phosphorescent by the Astral Light, our
brains swarm with innumerable reflections and images.
We close our eyes, and it may happen that some brilliant,
sombre or terrific panorama will unroll beneath our eye-
lids. He who is sick of a fever will scarcely close them
through the night without being dazzled by an intolerable
brightness. Our nervous system — which is a perfect
electrical apparatus — concentrates the light in the brain,
being the negative pole of that apparatus, or projects it
by the extremities which are points designed for the
circulation of our vital fluid. When the brain attracts
powerfully some series of images analogous to any passion
which has disturbed the equilibrium of the machine, the
interchange of light stops, astral respiration ceases and
the misdirected light coagulates, so to speak, in the brain.
It comes about for this reason that the sensations of hal-
lucinated persons are of the most false and perverse order.
Some find enjoyment in lacerating the skin with thongs
and in roasting their flesh slowly ; others eat and relish
things unfit for sustenance. Doctor Brierre de Boismont
has collected a great series of instances, and many of
them are extremely curious.^ All excesses in life — whether
^ The reference is to a work entitled Des Hallucinations^ ou Histoire
raison7iie des Apparitions^ des Visions^ des Songes^ de VExtase^ du Magne-
tisme et du Somnambulisme. It was first published about 1850 and was
of authority at its period. Its large array of materials will be always
valuable. I believe that it was translated into English.
The History of Magic
through the misconstruction of good or through the non-
resistance of evil — may overstimulate the brain and occasion
the stagnation of light therein. Overweening ambition,
proud pretence of sanctity, a continence full of scruples
and desires, the indulgence of shameful passions notwith-
standing repeated warnings of remorse — all these lead to
syncope or reason, to morbid ecstasy, hysteria, vision,
madness. The learned doctor goes on to observe that
a man is not mad because he is subject to visions but
because he believes in his visions rather than in ordinary
sense. Hence it is obedience and authority that alone
can save the mystics ; if they have obstinate self-confi-
dence there is 09 cure ; they are excommunicated already
by reason and by faith : they are the aliens of universal
charity. They think themselves wiser than society ; they
dream of founding a religion, but they stand alone ; they
believe that they have secured for their private use the
secret keys of life, but their intelligence is plunged already
in death.
132
CHAPTER III
INITIATIONS AND ORDEALS
That which adepts have distinguished as the Great Work
is not only the transmutation of metals but also and
above all the Universal Medicine — that is to say, the
remedy for all ills, including death itself. Now, the
process which produces the Universal Medicine is the
moral regeneration of man. It is that second birth
alluded to by our Saviour in His discourse to Nicodemus,
a doctor of the law. Nicodemus did not understand, and
Jesus said : " Are you a master in Israel and know not
these things ? '* — as if intending to intimate that they
belonged to the fundamental principles of religious
science, of which no professor could dare to be ignorant.^
The great mystery of life and its ordeals is repre-
sented in the celestial sphere and in the annual succession
of the seasons. The four aspects of the sphinx corre-
spond to these seasons and to the four elements. The
symbolical figures on the shield of Achilles — according
to the description of Homer — are analogous in their
meaning to the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Like
Hercules, Achilles must die, after having conquered the
elements and even done battle with the gods. Hercules,
on his part, triumphant over all the vices, represented by
the monsters whom he fought, succumbs for a moment
to love, the most dangerous of all. But he tears from
his body the burning tunic of Dejanira, though the flesh
comes with it from the bones ; he leaves her guilty and
^ There is no need to say that the Second Birth, to v^hich allusion is
made by Christ, is not comprehended by any notion of a moral chan^je,
though such change is involved. Morality is the gate of spiritual life
but is not its sanctuary.
•33
The History of Magic
vanquished, to die on his own part — but as one liberated
and immortal.
Every thinking man is an CEdipus called to solve the
enigma of the sphinx or, this failing, to die. Every
initiate must become a Hercules, who, achieving the
cycle of a great year of toil, shall, by sacrifices of heart
and life, deserve the glory of apotheosis. Orpheus is
not king of the lyre and of sacrifices till he has succes-
sively won and has learned how to lose Eurydice.
Omphale and Dejanira are jealous of Hercules : one
would debase him, the other yields to the counsels of an
abandoned rival, and so is induced to poison him who
has emancipated the world ; but in the act she cures him
of a far more fatal poison, which is her own unworthy
love. The flame of the pyre purifies his too susceptible
heart ; he perishes in all his vigour and is seated vic-
torious close to the throne of Jupiter. So also Jacob
was not appointed the great patriarch of Israel till he
had wrestled with an angel through the length of an
entire night.
Ordeal is the great word of life, and life itself is a
serpent which brings forth and devours unceasingly. We
must escape from its folds ; we must set our foot upon
its head. Hermes duplicated the serpent, setting it
against itself, and in an eternal equilibrium, he con-
verted it into the talisman of his power, into the glory of
his caduceus.
The great ordeals of Memphis and Eleusis were de-
signed to form kings and priests by entrusting science to
strong and valiant men. The price of admission to such
tests was the surrender of body, soul and life into the
hands of the priesthood. The candidate descended
thereafter through dark subterranean regions, wherein
he traversed successively among flaming pyres, passed
through deep and rapid floods, over bridges thrown across
abysses, holding in his hand a lamp which must not be
extinguished. He who trembled, he whom feat over-
134
Formation and Development of Dogmas
came never returned to the light ; but he who sur-
mounted every obstacle intrepidly was received among
the myst^y which meant initiation into the Lesser Mys-
teries. He had yet to vindicate his fidelity and silence ;
it was only at the end of several years that he became an
epopt, being a title equivalent to that of adept.^
Philosophy, in competition with the priesthood, imi-
tated these practices, and put its disciples to the proof.
Pythagoras exacted silence and abstinence for five years.
Plato opened his schools to none but geometricians and
those skilled in music ; furthermore, he reserved part of
his instruction to initiates, so that his philosophy had its
mysteries.^ He attributed the creation of the world to
demons and represented man as the progenitor of all
animals. But the demons of Plato signify the Elohim
of Moses, being those powers by the combination and
harmony of which the Supreme Principle created. When
he represents beasts as begotten by humanity he means
that they are the analysis of that living form, the synthesis
of which is man. It was Plato who first proclaimed the
divinity of the Word, and he appeared to foresee the
approaching incarnation of this creative Word on earth ;
he proclaimed the suflFerings and execution of the
perfect just man, condemned by the iniquity of the
world.
This sublime philosophy of the Word is part of the
^ The point which escapes in this synopsis of Egyptian initiation is
that which distinguishes the official mysteries — Hke Masonry — from vital
initiation, and I mention it here because there are memorials of Egyptian
mysteries which suggest that they were no mere symbolical pageants
but did communicate — to those who could receive — the life which is behind
such symbolism.
^ The analogy here instituted assumes in respect of the Greek mys-
teries that which has been implied previously regarding those of Egypt.
The laws and by-laws of the schools of philosophy, whatever they
exacted from pupils, were not imitations of llie grades of initiation and
advancement communicated in priestly sanctuaries, if there was mystic
life in those sanctuaries. Even if they were merely pageants, the com-
parison does not obtain ; for it is obvious that Pythagoras and Plato did
not confer degrees by way of ritual. Matriculation and *' the little go "
are not ceremonial observances in the path of symbolism.
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pure Kabalah, whence Plato was in no wise its inventor.^
He makes no secret of this and he proclaims that in
any science only that must be received which is in har-
mony with eternal truths and with the oracles of Gdd.
Dacier, from whom this quotation comes, adds that '* by
these eternal truths Plato signified an ancient tradition
which he supposes primeval humanity to have received
from God and transmitted to later generations." It would
be impossible to speak more clearly without actually
naming the Kabalah : it is definition instead of name ; in
a sense, it is something more precise than the name itself.
Plato says otherwise that " the root-matter of this
great knowledge is not to be found in books ; we must
seek in ourselves by means of deep meditation, discover-
ing the sacred fire in its proper source. . . . This is why
I have written nothing concerning these revelations and
shall never even speak about them. Whosoever shall
undertake to popularise them will find the attempt futile,
for, except in the case of a very small number of men
who have been endowed with understanding from God
to discern these heavenly truths within themselves, it
will render them contemptible to some, while filling
others with vain and rash self-confidence, as if they were
depositaries of marvels which they do not understand
all the same." ^
^ The truth is that in so far as the Jewish Kabalah contains a Lo^os
philosophy, so far it embodies confused reminiscences of Alexandrian
schools of thought, l^liphas L6vi reminds one of Jacob J yant, Davies
and the respectable Mr. Faber, who explained the whole universe of
history by the help of Shem, Ham and Japhet, the deluge and the Ark
of Noah. He saw the Kabalah everywhere ; had he spoken of a secret
tradition subsisting in all times, of which Kabalism is a part in reflection,
he would have been less confused and confusing ; but he applied to the
whole a term which is peculiar to a part. It is said in the Zohar that
the Word which discovers unto us the supreme mysteries is generated
by the union of light and darkness. Part I, Fol. 32a. It is said also
that the Word dwells in the superior heavens, Fol. 33b. And there are
other references.
* Daciet was a translator in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
and his study on the Doctrine of Plato appeared in the third volume of a
collection entitled Biblioth^que dcs Anciens Philosophes^ which began
publication in 177 1.
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
To the younger Dionysius he wrote : ** I must bear
witness to Archedemus concerning that which is far
more precious, more divine by far, and that which you
desire earnestly to know, having sent him to me expressly.
He gives me to understand that in your view I have not
explained to you sufficiently what I hold as to the nature
of the First Principle. I can only write in enigmas, so
that if my letter be intercepted on land or water, he
who may read it shall understand nothing : all things
encompass their king, from whom they draw their being,
he being the source of all good things — second for those
which are second and third for those which are third."
These few words are a complete summary of sephirotic
theology.^ The King is Ensoph — Supreme and Absolute
Being. All radiates from this centre, which centre is
everywhere, but we regard it after three especial manners
and in three distinct spheres. In the Divine world,
which is that of the First Cause, the King is one and
first. In the world of science, which is that of secondary
causes, the influence of the First Principle is felt, but
is conceived only as first of the said causes. Therein
the King manifests by the duad, which is the passive
creating principle. Finally, in the third world, which
is that of forms, he is revealed as perfect form, the
incarnate Word, supreme goodness and beauty, created
perfection. The King is therefore, at one and the same
time, the first, second and third, seeing that He is all in
all, centre and cause of all. Let us be silent on the
genius of Plato, recognising only the exact knowledge of
the initiate.
Let it therefore be said no longer that our great
^ Those who may wish to be acquainted with the sources from which
Levi drew some of his materials may consult Ccelum Sephiroticum^ by
J. C. Steebius, an old folio which appeared in 1679, as well as Reuchlin and
Rosenroth. They will see how things change in his hands. According
to the Zohai\ Ain Soph reflects immediately into K ether on the path of
manifestation. It is not correct to say that the king is Ain Soph in
Knbalism and the letter of Plato is devoid of sephirotic analogies.
The History of Magic
apostle St. John borrowed from the philosophy of Plato
the prooemium of his gospel. It is Plato, on the contrary,
who drew from the same sources as St. John; but he
had not received that spirit which makes alive. The
philosophy of him who expounded the greatest of human
revelations might aspire towards the Word made man,
but the gospel alone could give that Word to the world.
The Kabalah taught by Plato to the Greeks assumed
at a later period the name of Theosophy and ended by
embracing the whole of magical doctrine.^ It is to this
sum total of secret doctrine that all discoveries of research
gravitated successively. The ambition was to pass from
theory to practice and to find the realisation of words
in works. The dangerous experiences of divination
taught science how it might dispense with the priest-
hood ; the sanctuary was betrayed, and men who had no
mission dared to make the gods speak. It is for this
reason that theurgy shared in the anathemas pronounced
against Black Magic and was suspected of imitating its
crimes because it could not exculpate itself from a share
in its impiety. The veil of Isis is not lifted with
impunity, and curiosity blasphemes faith when Divine
things are concerned. '* Blessed are those who have not
seen and have believed,'' says the Great Master.
The experiments of theurgy and necromancy are
always fatal for those who are abandoned to their practice.
To set foot upon the threshold of the other world spells
death, and it follows often in a strange and terrible
manner. Vertigo supervenes, catalepsy and madness
finish the work. It is unquestionable that in the presence
of certain persons a disturbance takes place in the air,
wainscots split, doors shake and creak. Fantastic signs
^ It must be said that the Greek word deoaocpla did not pass into Latin
in classical times and was unknown throughout the middle ages. As an
illustration of its occult prevalence, I cannot trace that it was used by
Paracelsus. In so far as it can be said to have become prevalent, it was
in a mystic sense only, as in the proper use of words it could alone be.
It was made familiar by Jacob Uohme.
138
Formation and Development of Dogmas
and even stains, as of blood, seem to impress themselves
on virgin-parchment or on linen. The nature of these
signatures is always the same and they are classified by
experts under the name of diabolical writings. The
mere sight of such characters sends sufferers from
magnetic hysteria into convulsions or ecstasy ; they
believe that they behold spirits, and Satan, or the genius
of error, is transfigured for them into an angel of light.
The pretended spirits require, as the condition of their
manifestation, some kind of contact between the sexes,
the putting of hand in hand, foot to foot, breathing
face to face and even immodest embraces. Devotees
are besotted by this kind of intoxication ; they think
that they are elected by God, that they are interpreters
of heaven, and they regard obedience to the hierarchy
in the light of fanaticism. They are the successors of
the Indian race of Cain, victims of hasheesh and fakirs.
They profit by no warnings, and they perish by their
own act and will.
To restore sufferers of this kind the Greek priests
resorted to a species of homoeopathy ; they terrified the
patients by exaggerating the disease itself, and for this
purpose they put them to sleep in the cave of Trophonius.*
The preparation for this experience was by fastings,
lustrations and vigils ; the patients were then taken
down into the vault and shut up in total darkness.
Intoxicating gases, like those in the Grotto of the Dog
near Naples, filled the cavern, and the visionary was
overcome speedily. Incipient asphyxia induced frightful
dreams, from which the victim was rescued in time and
^ The classical authorities for the visitation of the cave of Trophonius
include Pausanias of Caesarea, who wrote the history of Greece, Cicero,
Pliny and Philostratus, not to mention the allusion found in the Clouds
of Aristophanes. The account of Eliphas Levi must be taken with
certain reservations, but it is not a matter in which accuracy or its
opposite is of any consequence outside scholarly research. There were
various sacrifices and other ceremonies prior to the visitation, rmil the
candidate for the experience usually descended alone. It is not, I think,
on record that the effect of the visit was lasting.
139
The History of Magic
carried forth palpitating all over, pale and with hair on
end. In this condition he or she was seated on a tripod
and prophetic utterances preceded complete awakening.
Experiences of this sort so distracted the nervous system
that their subjects never recalled them without trembling
and in future did not dare to mention evocations or
phantoms. Some of them never smiled again or felt
the impulse of gaiety ; the general impression was so
melancholy that it passed into a proverb, and it was said
of anyone who did not unbend : '* He has slept in the
cave of Trophonius." ^
For the remanents of science and the recovery of
its mysteries we must have recourse to the religious
symbolism of antiquity rather than to the works of its
philosophers. The priests of Egypt were better acquainted
than ourselves with the laws of motion and of life.
They could temper or promote action by reaction, and
they foresaw without difficulty the realisation of effects
the cause of which they had postulated. The pillars
of Seth, Hermes, Solomon, Hercules symbolised in
magical traditions this universal law of equilibrium,
while the science of equilibrium led the initiates to
that of universal gravitation about centres of life, heat
and light. So in the Egyptian sacred calendars, where
it is known that each month was placed under the pro-
tection of three decani or genii of ten days, the first
decanate in the sign of Leo is represented by a human
head with seven rays ; the body has a scorpio-tail and
the sign of Sagittarius is under the chin. Beneath the
head is the name of Iao, and the figure was called
Khnoubis, an Egyptian word which signifies gold and
light. Thales and Pythagoras learned in the Egyptian
sanctuaries that the earth gravitated round the sun, but
they did not seek to publish the fact generally because
it would have involved the revelation of a great temple-
* The actual formula seems to have been : " He has consulted the
oracle of Trophonius."
140
Formation and Development of Dogmas
secret, being the dual law of attraction and radiation, of
fixity and movement, which is the principle of creation
and the unfailing cause of life.^ So also the Christian
writer Lactantius, who had heard of this magical tradition,
but as an effect in the absence of a cause, scoffed loudly
at theurgical dreamers who believed in the motion of the
earth and in antipodes, the result of which would be the
fact that we walked on our heads with the feet upward,
though our heads appeared to be erect. Furthermore,
as he added, with the logic of children, in such case we
should infallibly fall head downwards through the
heaven below us. So philosophers reasoned, while
priests, without answering or even smiling at their
blunders, continued to write in creative hieroglyphics
concerning all dogmas, all forms of poetry and all secrets
of truth.
In their allegorical description of Hades, the Greek
hierophants concealed the palmary secrets of Magic. We
find four rivers therein, even as in the Earthly Paradise,
'plus a fifth, which wound seven times round the others.
There was a river of sorrows and silence, called Cocytus ;
there was a river of forgetfulness, or Lethe ; and then
there was a swift and irresistible river which carried all
before it, flowing in an opposite course to yet another
river of fire. The two last were named Acheron and
Phlegethon, one being the negative and one the positive
fluid, flowing eternally each in each. The black and icy
waters of Acheron smoked with the warmth of Phlege-
thon, while the liquid flames of the latter were covered
with thick vapours by the former. Larva and lemures^
shadowy images of bodies which have lived and of those
which have yet to come, issued from these vapours by
myriads ; but whether they drank or not from the flood
of sorrows, all desired the waters of oblivion, to bring
them youth and peace. The wise alone do not seek to
* There is no question that, according to the Zohar^ the sun is the
centre of the planetary system, of which planets the earth is one.
The History of Magic
forget, for memory is their reward already ; so also they
only are truly dea^less, since they only are conscious of
their immortality. The tortures of Tenarus are truly
divine pictures of the vices and their eternal chastisement.
The greed of Tantalus, the ambition of Sisyphus, will
never be expiated, since they can never be satisfied.
Tantalus is athirst in the water, Sisyphus rolls a stone
towards the top of a mountain, hoping to take his seat
thereon, but it falls back continually and drags him
down into the abyss. Ixion, unbridled in licence, would
have violated the queen of heaven and was scourged by
infernal furies. He did not consummate his crime, for
he embraced only a phantom. The phantom may have
condescended in appearance to his love and may have
ministered to his passion, but when he disowned duty,
when his satisfaction was at the price of sacrilege, that
which he thought was love proved hatred in a mask of
flowers.
It is not from beyond the tomb, it is rather in life
itself that we must seek the mysteries of death. Salva-
tion or condemnation begin here below, and this earth
has also its heaven and hell. Virtue is ever rewarded,
vice is ever punished ; if the wealth of the wicked incline
us at times to think that they enjoy impunity, that in-
strument of good and evil seeming to be given them
by chance, there is woe notwithstanding to the unjust ;
they may possess the key of gold, but for them it opens
only the gate of the tomb and hell.
All true initiates have recognised the immense value
of toil and suffering. A German poet tells us that
sorrow is the dog of that unknown shepherd which leads
the flock of humanity. Learn how to suffer and learn
also to die — such are the gymnastics of eternity and such
is the immortal novitiate. This is the moral lesson of
Dante*s Divine Comedy^ and it was outlined in the alle-
gorical Table of Cebes, which belongs to the time of
Plato. An account of it has been preserved and many
142
Formation and Development of Dogmas
painters of the middle ages reconstructed the picture
therefrom. It is at once a philosophical and magical
monument, a perfect moral synthesis, and moreover the
most audacious demonstration ever attempted of that
Great Arcanum or Secret, the revelation of which must
subvert heaven and earth. Our readers will unquestion-
ably expect us to furnish its explanation, but he who has
solved this enigma knows that it is inexplicable by its
nature and is a sentence of death to those who take it
by surprise, even as to those who reveal it.^
This secret is the royalty of the sage and the crown
of that initiate who is represented coming down as a
victor from the mount of ordeal in the beautiful allegory
of Cebes. The Great Arcanum has made him master
of gold and light, which fundamentally are one thing ;
he has solved the quadrature of the circle ; he directs
perpetual motion ; and he possesses the Philosophical
Stone. Those who are adepts will understand me.
There is neither interruption in the process of Nature
nor a blank space in its work. The harmonies of heaven
are in correspondence with those of earth, and eternal
life fulfils its evolutions in accordance with the same
laws which rule in the life of a day. The Bible says
that God disposes all things according to weight, number
and measure, and this luminous doctrine was also that
of Plato. In the Fhadon he represents Socrates as dis-
coursing on the destinies of the soul in a manner which
is quite in conformity with Kabalistical traditions. Spirits
purified by trial are emancipated from the laws of weight,
and they soar above the atmosphere of tears ; others
grovel in darkness and are those who manifest to the
weak or criminal. All who are liberated from the mise-
^ There is extraordinary confusion, at the least by way of expression,
in this paragraph, which will inevitably create in the reader a notion
that the work of Cebes was a picture. As a fact, it is a description of
human life contained in a dialogue, to which the title of Tabula was
given. It has been printed several times, and once, I believe, at
Glasgow, in 1747.
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The History of Magic
ries of material life come back no more to contemplate
its crimes or share its errors : once is truly enough.
The care taken by the ancients over the burial of the
dead protested strongly against necromancy, and those
who disturbed the sleep of the grave were always regarded
as impious. To call back the dead would condemn
them to a second death, and the dread of earnest people,
belonging to old religions, lest they should remain without
burial after death, was in view of the possibility that the
corpse might be profaned by stryges and used in witch-
craft. After death the soul belongs to God and the body
to the common mother, which is earth. Woe to those
who dare to invade these asylums. When the sanctuary
of the tomb was disturbed, the ancients offered sacrifices
to the angry manes and a holy thought lay at the root of
this practice. As a fact, were it permitted anyone to
attract, by means of conjurations, the souls floating in
darkness but aspiring towards the light, such a person
would be begetting retrograde and posthumous children,
whom he must nourish with his own blood and with his
own soul. Necromancers are makers of vampires, and
they deserve no pity if they die devoured by the dead.
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CHAPTER IV
THE MAGIC OF PUBLIC WORSHIP
Forms are the product of ideas, and they in their turn
reflect and reproduce ideas. So far as sentiments are
concerned, these are multiplied by association in the union
of those who share them, so that all are charged with the
enthusiasm common to all. It comes about in this manner
that if one or another individual be deceived easily on
questions of the just and the beautiful, the people at large
will, this notwithstanding, continue to exalt in their minds
whatsoever things are sublime, and they will do it with
a longing which is itself sublime. These two great laws
of Nature were known to the ancient Magi and led them
to see the necessity of a public worship which should be
one in its nature, imposed on all, hierarchic and symbolic
in character, like all religion, splendid as truth, rich and
varied as Nature, starry as heaven, odoriferous as earth
— a worship in fact of the kind established afterwards by
Moses, realised in all its glory by Solomon, and, once
again transfigured, centralised to-day in the great metro-
polis of St. Peter at Rome.
Humanity as a fact has never known more than one
religion and one worship. This universal light has had
its uncertain reflections and its shadows, but ever after
the dark night of error we behold it emerge, one and
pure like the sun.
The magnificence of the cultus is the life of religion,
and if Christ chose poor ministers, his sovereign divinity
did not demand poor altars. Protestants have failed to
understand that ritual constitutes an instruction and that
a sordid or negligible god must not be created in the
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The History of Magic
imagination of the multitude. The English, who lavish
so much wealth on their own homes, who also affect to
prize the Bible highly, would find their particular churches
exceedingly cold and bare if they remembered the un-
paralleled pomp of Solomon's Temple. But that which
withers their forms of worship is the dryness of their
own hearts ; and with a cultus devoid of magic, splendour
and pathos, how shall their hearts be ever informed with
life } Look at their meeting-houses, which resemble
town-halls, and look at those honest ministers — dressed
like ushers or clerks — and who can do otherwise in their
presence than regard religion as formalism and God as a
justice of the peace ?
Orthodoxy is the absolute character of Transcendental
Magic. When truth is born into the world the star of
science announces the fact to the Magi, and they come
to adore the infant creator of futurity. Initiation is
obtained by understanding in respect of the hierarchy, as
also by the practice of obedience, and he who is initiated
truly will never turn sectarian. The orthodox traditions
were carried from Chaldea by Abraham ; in combination
with the knowledge of the true God, they reigned in
Egypt at the period of Joseph. Koung-Tseu sought to
establish them in China, but the imbecile mysticism of
India, under the idolatrous form of the Fo cultus, was
destined to prevail in that great empire. As by Abraham
out of Chaldea so was orthodoxy taken out of Egypt by
Moses, and in the secret traditions of the Kabalah we find
a theology at once complete, perfect, unique and com-
parable to our own at its grandest, when seen under the
light of its interpretation by the fathers and doctors of
the Church — a perfect whole, including lights which it is
not given to the world yet to understand. The Zoha)\
which is the head and crown of the Kabalistic sacred
books, unveils furthermore all depths and enlightens all
obscurities of ancient mythologies and of sciences con-
cealed in the sanctuaries of eld. It is true that we must
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
know the secret of its meaning in order to make use of it,
and it is further true that the keenest intellects which are
not acquainted with the secret will find the Zohar beyond
all understanding and even unreadable. It is to be hoped
that careful students of our works on Magic will attain the
secret for themselves, that they will come in their turn to
decode and thus be able to read the book which explains
so many mysteries.^
Initiation being the necessary consequence of that
hierarchic principle which is the basis of realisation in
Magic, it follows that the profane, after striving vainly
to force the doors of the sanctuary, have been driven to
raise altar against altar and to oppose ignorant dis-
closures of schism to the reticence of orthodoxy.
Horrible histories were circulated concerning the Magi ;
sorcerers and vampires cast upon them the responsibility
of their own crimes ; they were represented as feasting on
infants and drinking human blood. Such attacks of pre-
sumptuous ignorance against the prudence of science have
invariably met with success sufficient to perpetuate their
use. Has not some miserable creature set forth, in I
knew not what pamphlet, how he has heard with his own
eai. ,, and within the precincts of a club, the author of
this book demanding the blood of the wealthy to make
it into puddings for the nourishment of starving people ?
The more monstrous the calumny, the greater the Im-
pression that it produces in the minds of fools.
Those who slandered the Magi committed themselves
* I have intimated elsewhere that the Zohar is in several respects a
work of high entertainment, and that its reading is much more diverting
than Arabian or Ambrosial Nights. But Eliphas Levi is right in saying
that it calls for some preliminary training. He does not quite mean,
however, what I mean in making the suggestion. On the serious side
the Zohar is assuredly a work of mitiation and one of the great books of
the world, though Sir John Lubbock and others of kindred enterprise did
not happen to know of it. Levi is substantially right also in saying that
it requires a key, though his meaning is not expressed rightly. The
explanation is that it is not a methodical system and presupposes
throughout, on the part of its readers, an acquaintance with the tradition
which it embodies in allusive form.
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the enormities of which they accused them and were
abandoned to all the excesses of shameless sorcery.
There was everywhere the rumour of apparitions and
prodigies, and the gods themselves came down in visible
forms to authorise orgies. The maniacal circles of pre-
tended illuminati go back to the bacchantes who murdered
Orpheus. Since the days of those fanatical and clandes-
tine circles where promiscuity and assassination were
combined with ecstasies and prayers, a luxurious and
mystical pantheism increased continually. But the fatal
destinies of this consuming and destroying dogma are
recorded in one of the finest fables of Greek mythology.
Certain pirates of Tyre surprised Bacchus in his sleep and
carried him on board their vessel, thinking that the god
of inspiration had so become their slave ; but on a sudden,
in the open sea, their ship was transfigured, the masts
became vine-stocks, the rigging branches ; satyrs were seen
everywhere, dancing with lynxes and panthers ; the crew
were seized with frenzy, they felt themselves changed
into goats and cast themselves into the sea. Bacchus subse-
quently landed in Boeotia and repaired to Thebes, the city
of initiation, where he found that Pentheus had usurped
the supreme power. The latter in his turn attempted
to imprison the god, but the dungeon opened of itself
and the captive came forth triumphant. Pentheus was
enraged and the daughters of Cadmus, transformed into
Bacchantes, tore him in pieces, thinking that they were
immolating a young buU.^
Pantheism can never form a synthesis, but must be
disintegrated by the sciences, which the daughters of
^ It is difficult to say what authority was followed in producing this
account. Pentheus was the second King of Thebes, succeeding Cadmus,
who built the city. Bacchus was the son of Semele, the daughter of
Cadmus, by Jupiter, but he was never a candidate for the Theban throne.
The offence of Pentheus was not one of usurpation but of refusal to
recognise the divinity of Bacchus. He was not torn to pieces by the
daughters of Cadmus, but by a crowd of Bacchanals, among whom was
his own mother. It is impossible to turn this story into an allegory of
pantheism, as L^vi proceeds to do.
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
Cadmus typify. After Orpheus, Cadmus, QEdipus and
Amphiaratis, the great fabulous symbols of magical priest-
hood in Greece are Tiresias and Calchas ; but the first of
these was an undiscerning or faithless hierophant. Meet-
ing on a day with two interlaced serpents, he thought
that they were fighting and separated them by a stroke
of his wand. He did not understand the emblem of the
caduceus, and hence sought to divide the forces of Nature,
to separate science from faith, intelligence from love,
man from woman. He mistook their union for warfare,
wounded them in the act of separation, and so lost his
own equilibrium. He became alternately male and
female, but neither in a perfect way, for the consumma-
tion of marriage was forbidden him.^ The mysteries of
universal equilibrium and creative law are revealed fully
herein. Generation is in fact a work of the human
androgyne ; in their division man and woman remain
sterile, as religion without science and conversely, as mild-
ness without force and force apart from mildness, justice
in the absence of mercy and mercy divorced from justice.
Harmony results from the analogy of things in opposi-
tion ; they must be distinguished with a view to unite
them and not separated, so that we may choose between
them. It is said that man shifts incessantly from black
to white in his opinions and ever deceives himself. It is
so of necessity, for visible and real form is black and
white ; it manifests itself by an alliance of light and
shadow which does not confuse them together. So
are all contraries in Nature married, and he who would
part them risks the punishment of Tiresias. Others say
that he was smitten with blindness because he had sur-
^ The classical story is the very contrary of this. The effect of his
experiments with the serpents was like that of passing through the foot
of the rainbow ; Tiresias was changed into a girl. He married in this
form ; but having met a second time with some other interlaced serpents,
he again smote them and recovered his original sex. So far from being
unable to consummate marriage in either case, he became an authority
with the gods on the comparative extent of satisfaction attained by the
two sexes in the act of sex.
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prised Minerva naked — that is to say, he had profaned
the Mysteries. This is another allegory, but it is always
the same thing symbolised.
Bearing no doubt this profanation in mind, Homer
depicts the shade of Tiresias wandering in Cymmerian
darkness and seeking amidst other hapless shades and
larvae to quench his thirst with blood when Ulysses
consulted spirits, using a ceremonial which was magical
and terrific after another manner than the contortions of
our own mediums, or the harmless precipitated missives of
our modern necromancers.
The priesthood is almost silent in Homer, for Calchas
the diviner is neither a sovereign pontiff nor a great hiero-
phant. He seems to be in the service of kings, with an
eye to their possible wrath, and he dares not speak un-
welcome truths to Agamemnon till he has besought the
protection of Achilles. Thus he sows division between
these chiefs and brings disasters on the army. All the
narratives of Homer contain important and profound
lessons, and he sought in the present case to impress
upon Greece the need for divine ministry to be indepen-
dent of temporal influences. The priestly caste should
be responsible only to the supreme pontificate, and the
high priest is incapacitated if one crown be wanting in
his tiara. That he may be on equality with earthly
sovereigns he must be himself a temporal king ; he must
be king in understanding and science, king also by his
divine missioh. Homer seems to tell us in his wisdom
that failing such a priesthood there is something wanting
to the equilibrium of empires.
Theoclymenes, another diviner, who appears in the
Odyssey, fills almost the part of a parasite, purchasing a
not too friendly hospitality from the suitors of Penelope
by a useless warning and prudently withdrawing before
the disturbance which he foresees.
There is a gulf between these good and bad fortune-
tellers and the sibyls dwelling unseen in their sanctuaries,
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
which are approached in fear and trembling. This not-
withstanding, the successors of Circe yield only to daring ;
force or subtlety must be used to enter their retreat ;
they must be seized by the hair, threatened with the
sword and dragged to the fatal tripod. Then, crim-
soning and whitening by turn, shuddering and with hair
on end, they utter disconnected words, escape in a fury,
scribble on the leaves of trees detached sentences forming
prophetic verses when collected, and casting these leaves
to the wind, they shut themselves up in their refuge and
ignore any further calls. The oracle thus produced had
as many meanings as the modes of its possible combina-
tion varied. Had the leaves borne hieroglyphical signs
instead of words the interpretations would have been
multiplied further, while destiny could have been also
consulted by their chance combination, a method followed
subsequently in the divinations of geomancers by means
of numbers and geometrical figures.^ It is followed also
at this day by adepts of cartomancy who make use of the
great magical Tarot alphabets, for the most part, without
being acquainted with their values. In such operations
accident only chooses the signs on which the interpreter
depends for inspiration, and in the absence of exceptional
intuition and second sight, the phrases indicated by the
combinations of sacred letters or the revelations of the
combined figures prophesy according to chance. It is
insufficient to combine letters ; one must know how to
read. Cartomancy in its proper understanding is a
literal consultation of spirits, without necromancy or
sacrifices : but it postulates a good medium ; it is other-
wise dangerous and we do not recommend it to any one.
Is the memory of our bygone misfortunes not enough
to embitter the sufferings, of to-day, and must we then
overload them with all the anxiety of the future, by
partaking in advance of the catastrophes which it is
impossible to avoid ?
^ The term geometrical scarcely applies to the figures of geomancy.
151
CHAPTER V
MYSTERIES OF VIRGINITY
The Roman Empire was but the Greek in transfigura-
tion. Italy was a Greater Greece, and when Hellenism
had perfected its dogmas and mysteries, the education of
the children' of the wolf was the next task before it :
Rome was already on the scene.
The particular feature of the initiation conferred on
the Romans by Numa was the typical importance ascribed
to woman, following the lead of Egypt, which worshipped
the Supreme Divinity under the name of Isis. The
Greek god of initiation is lacchos, the conqueror of India,
the splendid androgynous being wearing the horns of
Ammon,^ the Pantheus holding the sacrificial cup and
pouring therefrom the wine of universal life — lacchos,
the son of thunder, the conqueror of tigers and lions.
When the bacchantes dismembered Orpheus, the Mys-
teries of lacchos were profaned ; and under the Roman
name of Bacchus he was only the god of intoxication.
It was from Egeria, goddess of mystery and solitude, a
sage and discreet divinity, that Numa sought his inspiration.
His devotion was rewarded ; he was instructed by
Egeria as to the honour which should be paid to the
mother of the gods. Under this dedication he erected
a circular temple beneath a cupola, and a fire was burnt
therein which was never suflFered to go out. It was
maintained by four virgins, who were termed vestals and
^ The Bacchus who was depicted with horns was the son of Jupiter
and Proserpine. As regards the androgynous nature of lacchos, I do
not know Levi's authority, but such a characteristic was ascribed to
several deities, though sometimes against general likelihood. It was
even said of Jupiter that he was a man but also an immortal maid.
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
so long as they were faithful to their trust, they were
surrounded with strange honours, while, on the other
hand, their failure was punished with exceptional rigour.
The maid's honour is that also of the mother,, and the
sanctity of every family depends on the recognition of
virginal purity as a possible and glorious thing. Herein
already woman is emancipated from the old bondage ;
she is no more an oriental slave, but a domestic divinity,
guardian of the hearth, the honour of father and spouse.
Rome in this manner became a sanctuary of morality,
and on such condition was also queen of the nations and
metropolis of the world.
The magical tradition of all ages attributes a certain
supernatural and divine quality to the virgin state. Pro-
phetic inspirations adorn it, while it is the hatred of
innocence and virginity which prompted Goetic Magic
to sacrifice children, whose blood was regarded notwith-
standing as having a sacred and expiatory virtue. To
withstand the allurement of generation is to graduate in
the onquest of death, and supreme chastity was the most
glori'U;. crown set before hierophants.^ To expend life
in human embraces is to strike roots in the grave.
Chastity is a flower which is so loosely bound to earth
that, when the sun's caresses draw it upwards, it is
detached without effort and takes flight like a bird.
The sacred fire of the vestals was a symbol of faith
and of pure love. It was an emblem also of that uni-
versal agent, the terrible and electric nature of which
Numa could produce and direct. If by culpable negli-
gence the vestals allowed their fire to die out, it could
only be rekindled by the sun's rays or by lightning. It
was renewed and consecrated at the beginning of each
^ L6vi affirms elsewhei:e that the satisfaction of all the calls of sense
is required for the work of philosophy. In the present place he confuses
the issue by implying that chastity means either celibacy or the virgin
state. Yet he did not fail to understand that the nuptial life is also a life
of chastity ; he speaks eloquently of the home and its sanctity, and he
alludes elsewhere to the chaste and conjugal Venus.
The History of Magic
year, a custom perpetuated and observed among us on
Easter Eve.
Christianity has been wrongly accused of taking over
all that was beautiful in anterior forms of worship ; it is
the last transfiguration of universal orthodoxy, and as
such it has preserved whatsoever belonged to it, while
rejecting dangerous practices and idle superstitions.
Furthermore, the sacred fire represented love of country
and the religion of the hearth. To this religion, and to
the inviolability of the conjugal sanctuary, Lucretia oflFered
herself in sacrifice. Lucretia personifies all the majesty
of ancient Rome ; she could doubtless have escaped
outrage by abandoning her memory to slander, but good
repute is a noblesse qui oblige. In the matter of honour
a scandal is more deplorable than an indiscretion. Lucretia
raised her dignity as a virtuous woman to the height of
the priesthood by suffering an assault so that she might
expiate and avenge it afterwards. It was in memory of
this illustrious Roman lady that high initiation in the
cultus of the fatherland and the hearth was entrusted to
women, men being excluded. It was for them to learn
in this manner that true love is that which inspires the
most heroic sacrifices. They were taught that the real
beauty of man is heroism and grandeur ; that the woman
capable of betraying or forsaking her husband blasts both
her past and future and is branded on the forehead with
the ineflFaceable stain of a retrospective prostitution,
aggravated further by perjury. To cease loving him to
whom the flower of her youth has been given, is the
greatest woe which can afflict the heart of a virtuous
woman ; but to publish it abroad is to falsify past inno-
cence, to renounce probity of heart and integrity of
honour ; it is the last and most irreparable shame.
Such was the religion of Rome ; to the magic of such
a moral code she owed all her greatness, and when mar-
riage ceased to be sacred in her eyes, her decadence was
at hand. In the days of Juvenal the mysteries of the
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
Bona T>ea are said to have been mysteries of impurity,
which it may perhaps be possible to question, seeing that
as women alone were admitted to these pretended orgies
they must have betrayed themselves ; but on the assump-
tion that the charge is true, because anything seems
possible after the reigns of Nero and Domitian, we can
only conclude that the clean reign of the mother of the
gods was over and was giving place to the popular, uni-
versal and purer worship of Mary, the Mother of God.
Initiate of magical laws, and knowing the magnetic
influences of communal life, Numa instituted colleges of
priests and augurs, living under prescribed rules. This
was the first idea of conventual institutions, which are
one of the great powers of religion. Long anterior to
this, the Jewish prophets were joined in sympathetic bonds,
having prayer and inspiration in common. It would
seem that Numa was acquainted with the traditions of
Judea ; his flamines and salii worked themselves into a
state of exaltation by evolutions and dances recalling the
performance of David before the ark. Numa did not
establish new oracles intended to rival those of Delphos,
but he instructed his priests especially in the art of augu-
ries, which means that he acquainted them with a certain
theory of presentiments and second sight, determined by
secret laws of Nature. We despise nowadays the art
of soothsaying and portents, because we have lost the
profound science of light and the universal analogies of
its reflections. In his charming tale of Zadig, Voltaire
delineates, with light and unserious touch, a purely naloral
science of divination, but it is not for that less wonder-
ful, presupposing as it does an exceptional fineness of
observation and that power of deduction which escapes
habitually the limited logic of the vulgar. It is said that
Parmenides, the master of Pythagoras, having tasted the
water of a certain spring, predicted an approaching earth-
quake. The circumstance is not extraordinary, for the
presence of a bituminous and sulphureous flavour in water
The History of Magic
may well have advised the philosopher of subterranean
activities in the district. Even the water itself may have
been unusually disturbed. However this may be, the
flight of birds is still considered premonitory of severe
winters, and it may be possible to foresee some atmo-
spheric influences by inspecting the digestive and respira-
tory apparatus of animals. Now, physical disturbances
of the air have not infrequently a moral cause. Revolu-
tions are translated therein by the phenomena of great
storms ; the deep breathing of nations moves heaven
itself. Success proceeds coincidently with electric cur-
rents, and the hues of the living light reflect the motions
of thunder. ** There is something in the air," says the
crowd, with its particular prophetic instinct. Soothsayers
and augurs knew how to read the characters which the
light inscribes everywhere and how to interpret the sigils
of astral currents and revolutions. They knew why
birds wing their flight in isolation or in flocks, under
what influences they turn to North or South, to East or
West, which is just what we cannot explain, though we
scoflF now at the augurs. It is so very easy to scoffs and
it is so difficult to learn thoroughly.
It was owing to such predetermined disparagement
and to denial of what is not understood that men of
parts, like Fontenelle, and men of learning, as Kircher,
have written such intemperate things concerning the
ancient oracles. Everything is craft and jugglery for
strong minds of this order. They suppose automatic
statues, concealed speaking-trumpets and artificial echoes
in the vaults of every temple. Why this eternal slander
of the sanctuary } Has there been nothing but roguery
in the priesthoods.? Would it have been impossible to
find men of uprightness and conviction among the hiero-
phants of Ceres or Apollo.? Or were these deceived
like the rest .? And in such case how did it happen that
the impostors continued their traffic for centuries without
ever betraying themselves, individual rogues not being
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
gifted with immortality ? Recent experiments have shewn
us that thoughts can be transferred, translated into
writing and printed by the unaided force of the Astral
Light. Mysterious hands still write on our walls, as at
the feast of Belshazzar. Let us not forget the wise
observation of a scholar who assuredly cannot be accused
either of fanaticism or credulity : " Outside pure mathe-
matics," said Arago, " he who pronounces the word
impossible is wanting in caution."
The religious calendar of Numa is based upon that
of the Magi ; it is a sequence of feasts and mysteries,
recalling throughout the secret doctrine of initiates and
perfectly adapting the public enactments of the cultus to
the universal laws of Nature. Its arrangement of months
and days has been preserved by the conservative influence
of Christian regeneration. Even as the Romans under
Numa, we still hallow by abstinence the days consecrated
to the commemoration of birth and death ; but for us the
day of Venus is sanctified by the expiations of Calvary.
The gloomy day of Saturn is that during which our in-
carnate God sleeps in His tomb, but He will rise up,
and the life which He promises will blunt the scythe of
Kronos. That month which Romans dedicated to Mafa,
the nymph of youth and flowers, the young mother who
smiles upon the year's first-fruits, is consecrated by us to
Mary, the mystical rose, the lily of purity, the heavenly
mother of the Saviour. So are our religious observances
ancient as the world, our feasts are like those of our
forefathers, for the Redeemer of Christendom came to
suppress none of the symbolic and sacred beauties of old
initiation. He came, as He said Himself, in reference
to the figurative Law of Israel, to realise and fulfil all
things.
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CHAPTER VI
SUPERSTITIONS
Superstitions are religious forms surviving the loss of
ideas. Some truth no longer known or a truth which
has changed its aspect is the origin and explanation of
all. Their name, from the Latin superstes, signifies that
which survives ; they are the dead remanents of old
knowledge or opinion.
Ever governed by instinct rather than by thought,
the common people cleave to ideas through the mediation
of forms, and it is with difficulty that they modify their
habits. The attempt to destroy superstitions impresses
them always as an attack on religion itself, and hence
St. Gregory, one of the greatest popes in Christendom,
did not seek to suppress the old practices. He recom-
mended his missionaries to purify and not destroy the
temples, saying that *'so long as a people have their old
places of worship they will frequent them by force of
habit and will thus be led more easily to the worship of
the true God." He said also : " The Bretons have fixed
days for feasts and sacrifices ; leave them their feasts and
do not restrain their sacrifices ; leave them the joy of
their festivals, but from the state of paganism draw them
gently and progressively into the estate of Christ."
It came about in this manner that older pious observ-
ances were replaced by holy mysteries with scarcely a
change of name. There was, for example, the yearly
banquet called Charislia, to which ancestral spirits were
invited, so making an act of faith in universal and
immortal life. The Eucharist, or supernal Charistia^
has replaced that of antiquity, and we communicate
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
Easter by Easter with all our friends in heaven and on
earth.^ Far from maintaining the old superstitions by
such adaptations, Christianity has breathed soul and life
into the surviving signs of universal beliefs.
That science of Nature which is in such close con-
sanguinity with religion, seeing that it initiates men into
the secrets of Divinity, that forgotten science of Magic,
still lives undivided in hieroglyphical signs and, to some
extent, in the living traditions or superstitions which
it has left outwardly untouched. For example, the
observation of numbers and days is a blind reminiscence
of primitive magical dogma. As a day consecrated to
Venus, Friday was always considered unlucky, because
it signified the mysteries of birth and death. No enter-
prise was undertaken on Friday by the Jews, but they
completed thereon the work which belonged to the
week, seeing that it preceded the Sabbath, or day of
compulsory rest. The number 13, being that which
follows the perfect cycle of 12, also represents death,
succeeding the activities of life ; and in the Jewish
Symbolum the article relating to death is numbered
thirteen. The partition of the family of Joseph into
two tribes brought thirteen guests to the first Passover
of Israel in the Promised Land, meaning thirteen tribes
to share the harvests of Canaan. One of them was
exterminated, being that of Benjamin, youngest of the
children of Jacob. Hence comes the tradition that
when there are thirteen at table the youngest is destined
to die quickly.^
^ There were two pagan festivals which have a certain likeness between
them : {a) Charisia^ which was in honour of Aglaia, Thalia and Euphro-
syne, the Charites or Graces. It was celebrated by dances at night,
and the person who maintained the exercise longest was presented with
a cake, {b) Charistia^ a Roman festival, for the reconciliation of rela-
tions and friends, at which food was eaten. It could be wished for the
perpetuity and catholicity of the sacraments that there were traces of
an Eucharist in the Christian sense prior to Christian times.
- It may be mentioned that 13 is also the number of resurrection, or
birth into new life.
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The History of Magic
The Magi abstained from the flesh of certain animals
and touched no blood. Moses raised this practice into
a precept, on the ground that it is unlawful to partake
of the soul of animals, which soul is in the blood. It
remains therein after their slaughter, like a phosphorus
of coagulated and corrupted Astral Light, which may
be the germ of many diseases. The blood, of strangled
animals digests with difliculty and predisp ses to apoplexy
and nightmare. The flesh of carnivora is also unwhole-
some on account of the savage instincts with which it
has been associated and because it has already absorbed
corruption and death.
** When the soul of an animal is separated violently
from its body," says Porphyry, ''it does not depart, but,
like that of human beings which have died in the same
way, it remains in the neighbourhood of the body. It
is so retained by sympathy and cannot be driven away.
Such souls have been seen moaning by their bodies. It
is the same with the souls of men whose bodies have
not been interred. It is to these that the operations of
magicians do outrage, by enforcing their obedience, so long
as the operators are masters of the dead body in whole or
in part. Theosophers who are familiar with these mys-
teries, with the sympathy of animal souls for the bodies
from which they are separated, and with their pleasure in
approaching these, have rightly forbidden the use of certain
meats, so that we may not be infected by alien souls."
Porphyry adds that prophecy may be acquired by
feeding on the hearts of ravens, moles and hawks ; here
the Alexandrian theurgist betakes himself to the processes
of the Little Albert^ but though he lapses so quickly into
superstition it is by entering a wrong path, for his point
of departure was science.^
^ The Grimoire mentioned under the name of Little Albert is called
in the Latin edition Alberti Parvi Liicii Libellus^ and is " a treasure of
marvellous secrets." The original intention was to father it on Albertiis
MagnuSy and in fact there is another collection which is known as the
Great Albert. It is of similar value.
1 60
Formation and Development of Dogmas
To indicate the secret properties of animals, the
ancients said that at the epoch of the war of the giants,
various forms were assumed by the gods with a view to
concealment, and that they resumed these subsequently
at pleasure. Thus, Diana changed into a she- wolf ; the
sun into a bull, lion, dragon and hawk ; Hecate into a
horse, lioness and bitch.
The name of Pherebates was, according to several
theosopbers, assigned to Proserpine because she lived
upon turtle-doves, and these birds were the usual offer-
ing which the priestesses of Maia made to that goddess,
who is the Proserpine of earth, daughter of the fair Ceres,
and foster-mother of the human race. The initiates of
Eleusis abstained from domestic birds, fish, beans, peaches
and apples ; they abstained also from intercourse with
a woman in child-bed, as well as during her normal
periods. Porphyry, from whom this information is
derived, adds as follows : " Whosoever has studied the
science of visions knows that one must abstain from all
kinds of birds in order to be liberated from the bondage
of terrestrial things and find a place among the celestial
gods." But the reason he does not give.
According to Euripides, the initiates of the secret
cultus of Jupiter in Crete touched no flesh-meat ; in the
chorus addressed to King Minos, the priests in question
are made to speak as follows : " Son of a Phoenician
Tyrian woman, descendant of Europa and great Jupiter,
King of the Isle of Crete, famous through an hundred
cities, we come unto thee, forsaking temples built of oak
and cypress fashioned with knives ; leaders of a pure
life, behold, we come. Since I was made a priest of
Jupiter-Idaeus, I take no part in the nocturnal feasts of
Bacchanals, I eat no half-cooked meats ; but I offer tapers
to the mother of the gods. I am a priest among the
Curetes clothed in white; 1 keep far from the cradles
of men ; I shun also their tombs ; and I eat nothing
which has been animated by the breath of life."
l6l L
The History of Magic
The flesh of fish is phosphorescent and hence is
aphrodisiacal. Beans are heating and cause absence of
mind. For every form of abstinence, including the most
irregular forms, a deep reason, apart from all superstition,
can probably be found. There are certain combinations
of foods which are opposed to the harmonies of Nature.
" Thou shalt not seethe the kid in his mother's milk,"
said Moses — a prescription which is touching as an allegory
and wise on the ground of hygiene.
The Greeks like the Romans, but not to the same
extent, were believers in presages ; it was good augury when
serpents tasted the sacred oflFerings ; it was favourable or
the reverse when it thundered on the right or the left
hand. There were presages in the ways of sneezing and
in other natural weaknesses which may be left here to
conjecture. In the Hymn of Mercury, Homer narrates
that when the god of thieves was still in his cradle he
stole the oxen of Apollo, who took the youngster and
shook him, to make him confess the larceny :
Mercure s'avisant cTun dtrange miracle^
De ses flancs courroucds fit entendre F oracle;
Jusqu^au grand Apollon la vapeur en monta.^
It was all presage with the Romans — a stone against
which the foot struck, the cry of a screech-owl, the bark-
* I have suffered these lines to stand as they are given by Eliphas
L^vi, following the French translation of Salomon Certon. Shelley,
who rendered Homer's Hymn to Mercury into verse which is unworthy
of his name, represented the Greek original by asterisks at this point,
and I have taken a lesson from the counsel. Levi gives some further
lines — I scarcely know why, but they stand as follows in Shelley's
version :
" Phoebus on the grass
Him threw, and whilst all that he had designed
He did perform — eager although to pass,
Apollo darted from his mighty mind
Towards the subtle babe the following scoff: —
* Do not imagine this will get you off,
** ' You little swaddled child of Jove and May ! '
And seized him : * By this omen I shall trace
My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.' "
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Formation and Development of Dogmas
ing of a dog, a broken vase, an old woman who was first
to look at you. All such idle terrors had for their basis
that grand magical science of divination which neglects
no token but From an effect overlooked by the vulgar
ascends through a sequence of interlinked causes. This
science knows, for example, that those atmospheric influ-
ences which cause the dog to howl are fatal for certain
sufferers, that the appearance and the wheeling of ravens
mean the presence of unburied bodies — which is always of
sinister augury ; localities of murder and execution are
frequented by these fowl. The flight of other birds
prognosticates hard winters, while yet others, by their
plaintive cries over the sea, give the signal of coming
storms. On that which science discerns ignorance
remarks and generalises ; the first sees useful warnings
everywhere ; the other distresses and frightens itself at
everything.
The Romans furthermore were great observers of
dreams; the art of their interpretation belongs to the
science of the vital light, to the understanding of its
direction and reflections. Men versed in transcendental
mathematics are well aware that there can be no image
in the absence of light, be it direct, reflected or refracted ;
and by the direction of the ray, the return under the fold
of which they know how to find, they arrive by an exact
calculation, and invariably, at the source of light and can
estimate its universal or relative force. They take into
account also the healthy or diseased state of the visual
mechanism, external or internal, and attribute thereto
the apparent deformity or rectitude of images. For such
persons, dreams are a complete revelation, since dream
is a semblance of immortality during that nightly death
which we call sleep. In the dream-state we share in the
universal life, unconscious of good or evil, time or space.
We leap over trees, dance on water, breathe upon prisons
and they fall ; or alternatively, we are heavy, sad, hunted,
chained up — according to the state of our health and often
163
The History of Magic
that of our conscience. All this is useful to observe,
and unquestionably, but what can be inferred therefrom
by those who know nothing and are without the wish to
learn ?
The all-powerful action of harmony, in exalting the
soul and giving it rule over the senses, was well known
to the ancient sages ; but that which they employed to
soothe was wrested by enchanters to excite and intoxicate.
The sorceresses of Thessaly and of Rome believed that
the moon could be dragged from the sky by the barba-
rous verses which they recited and that it fell pale and
bleeding to the earth. The monotony of their recita-
tions, the sweep of their magical wands; their circumam-
bulations about circles, magnetised, excited, and led them
by stages to fury, to ecstasy, even to catalepsy itself. In
this kind of waking state, they fell into dream, saw tombs
open, the air overcast by clouds of demons, the mooji
falling from heaven.
The Astral Light is the living soul of the earth, a
material and fatal soul, controlled in its productions and
movements by the eternal laws of equilibrium. This
light, which environs and permeates all bodies, can also
suspend their weight and make them revolve about a
powerfully absorbent centre. Phenomena which have
been so far insufficiently examined, though they are being
reproduced in our own days, prove the truth of this
theory. To the same natural law must be ascribed
those magical whirlpools in the centre of which enchanters
located themselves. It explains the fascination exercised
on birds by certain reptiles and on sensitive natures by
others which are negative and absorbent. Mediums are
generally diseased creatures in whom the void opens and
who thus attract the light, as abysses draw the water of
whirlpools. The heaviest bodies can then be lifted like
straws and are carried away by the current. Such nega-
tive and unbalanced natures, whose fluidic bodies are
formless, can project their force of attraction, delineating
164
Formation and Development of Dogmas
by this means supplementary and fantastic members in
the air. When the celebrated medium Home makes
hands without bodies appear in his vicinity, his own hands
are dead and frozen. It may be said that mediums are
phenomenal beings in whom death struggles visibly
against life. As much may be concluded in the case
of enchanters, fortune-tellers, those with the evil eye and
casters of spells. Consciously or unconsciously, they arc
vampires, who draw the life which they lack and thus
disturb the balance of the light. When this is done con-
sciously, they are criminals who should be punished, and
when otherwise they are still exceedingly dangerous sub-
jects, from whom delicate and nervous people should be
carefully isolated.
Porphyry tells the following story in his life of
Plotinus. ** Among those who professed philosophy, there
was a certain Olympius, who was of Alexandria and for a
time disciple of Ammonius. He treated Plotinus with
disdain, being ambitious to surpass him in repute. He
sought also to injure him by magical ceremonies, but
having found that the attempt re-acted on himself he
admitted to his friends that the soul of Plotinus must
be one of great power, since it could turn back on his
enemies their own evil designs. Plotinus was conscious
of the hostile attempts of Olympius, and there were
times when he said suddenly : * Now he is having convul-
sions.' This kind of thing being repeated, and finding
that he was afflicted himself with the evils which he
would have wrought on Plotinus, Olympius ceased to
persecute."
Equilibrium is the great law of the vital light ; pro-
jected with force and repelled by a nature more balanced
than our own, it comes back upon ourselves with equal
violence. Woe therefore to those who would employ
natural powers in the service of injustice, since Nature is
just and her reactions are terrible.
165
CHAPTER VII
MAGICAL MONUMENTS
We have said that Egypt of old was itself a pantacle,
and as much might be affirmed concerning the elder world
at large. In proportion as the great hierophants were at
pains to conceal their absolute science, they sought more
and more to extend and multiply its symbols. The
triangular pyramids, with their square bases, represented
metaphysics grounded on the science of Nature ; and the
symbolical key of this science assumed the gigantic form
of that wonderful sphinx which, in its age-long vigil at
the foot of the pyramids, has hollowed for itself so deep
a bed in the s^nd. Those seven great monuments called
the wonders of the world were sublime commentaries
on the pyramids and on the seven mysterious gates of
Thebes. At Rhodes there was the Pantacle of the Sun,
in which the god of light and truth was symbolised under
a human form clothed with gold ; he raised in his right
hand the torch of intelligence and in his left held the
shaft of activity. His feet were fixed on moles represent-
ing the eternal equilibrating forces of Nature, necessity
and liberty, active and passive, fixed and volatile — in a
word, the Pillars of Hercules. At Ephesus was the
Pantacle of the Moon, which was the Temple of Diana
Panthea, made in the likeness of the universe. It was a
dome surmounting a cross, with a square gallery and a
circular precinct recalling the shield of Achilles. The
tomb of Mausoleus was the Pantacle of the Chaste and
Conjugal Venus ; in form it was after the manner of
a lingam^ having a square elevation and a circular ; re-
cinct. In the middle place of the square rose a truncated
i66
THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD
Facing ■/>. i66
Formation and Development of Dogmas
pyramid, on which was a chariot with four horses,
harnessed so as to form a cross. The Pyramids were
the Pantacle of Hermes or of Mercury. The Olympian
Jupiter was the Pantacle of that god. The walls of
Babylon and the citadel of Semiramis were Pantacles of
Mars. In fine, the Temple of Solomon — that universal
and absolute pantacle destined to replace the others — was
for the Gentile world the terrible Pantacle of Saturn.
The philosophical septenary of initiation, according to
the mind of the ancients, may be summarised as three
absolute principles, reducible to a single principle, and
four elementary forms, which are one form only, the
whole constituting an unity composed of form and
idea. The three principles are as follows: (i) Being is
being ; in philosophy this signifies the identity of the idea
and that which is, or truth ; in religion it is the first
principle, the Father. (2) Being is real ; this means in
philosophy the identity of knowledge and of that which
is, or reality ; in religion it is the Logos of Plato, the
Demiourgos, the Word. (3) Being is logical ; in philo-
sophy this signifies the identity of reason and reality ; in
religion it is Providence, or the Divine Action by which
the good is realised, the mutual love of the true and
the good, called the Holy Spirit in Christianity.
The four elementary forms were the expression of
two fundamental laws : resistance and motion ; the fixed
state, or that inertia which resists, and active life, or the
volatile ; in other and more general terms, matter and
spirit — matter being that nothingness which is formulated
by passive aflirmation, spirit being the principle of ab-
solute necessity in that which is true. The negative
action of material nothing on spirit was termed the evil
principle ; the positive action of spirit on this same
nothingness, so that it might be filled with creation and
with light, was called the good principle. To these
conceptions there corresponded, on the one hand,
humanity and, on the other, the rational and saving life,
167
The History of Magic
redeeming those who are conceived in sin — that is to say,
in nothingness — because of their material generation.
Such was the doctrine of secret initiation, such the
admirable synthesis that the spirit of Christianity came
to vivify, enlightening by its splendour, establishing
divinely by its dogma and realising by its sacraments.
Under the veil which was intended to preserve it, this
synthesis has vanished. It is destined to be recovered
by man in all its primitive beauty and all its maternal
fecundity.
i68
BOOK III
DIVINE SYNTHESIS AND REALISATION OF
MAGIA BY THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION
BOOK III
DIFINE SYNTHESIS AND REALISATION OF MAGIA
BT THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION
a— GIMEL
CHAPTER I
CHRIST ACCUSED OF MAGIC BY THE JEWS
At the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John
there is one sentence which is never uttered by the
Catholic Church except in the bending of the knees ; that
sentence is : ** The Word was made flesh/' The plenary
revelation of Christianity is comprised therein. So also
elsewhere the Evangelist furnishes the criterion of ortho-
doxy, which is the confession of Jesus Christ manifested
in flesh — that is to say, in visible and human reality.
After emblazoning in his visions the pantaclcs and
hieroglyphs of esoteric science ; after exhibiting wheels
revolving within wheels ; after picturing living eyes
turning to all the spheres ; after deploying the beating
wings of the four mysterious living creatures — Ezekiel,
the most profound Kabalist of the ancient prophets,
beholds nothing but a plain strewn with dry bones. At
his word they are covered with flesh and so is form
restored to them. A pitiful beauty invests these rem-
nants of death, but that beauty is cold and lifeless. Of
such were the doctrines and mythologies of the elder
world, when a breath of love descended upon them from
heaven. Then the dead shapes rose up ; the wraiths
of philosophy gave place to men of true wisdom ; the
171
The History of Magic.
Word was incarnate and alive ; it was no longer the day
of abstractions but one of reality. That faith which is
proved by works replaced the hypotheses which ended
in nothing but fables. Magic was transformed into
sanctity, wonders became miracles, the common people
— excluded by ancient initiation — were called to the
royalty and priesthood of virtue. Realisation is thus of
the essence of Christian religion, and its doctrine gives a
body even to the most obvious allegories. The house of
the young man who had great possessions is still shewn
in Jerusalem, and it might be in no sense impossible for
careful research to discover a lamp which, by a similar
tradition, once belonged to one of the foolish virgins.
Such ingenuous credulities are fundamentally not very
dangerous ; indeed they prove only the living and realis-
ing power of the Christian faith. The Jews accused that
faith of having materialised belief and idealised earthly
things. In our 'Doctrine and Ritual of 'Transcendental
Magic we have recited the scandalous parable of the
Sepher Toldos Jeshu which was invented to support^ the
accusation. It is related in the Talmud that Jesus ben
Sabta, or the son of the divorced woman, having studied
profane mysteries in Egypt, set up a false stone in Israel
and led the people into idolatry. It was acknowledged
notwithstanding that the Jewish priesthood did wrong
when it cursed him with both hands, and it is in this
connection that we find in the Talmud one beautiful pre-
cept which is destined hereafter to unite Christendom
and Israel : ** Never curse with both hands, so that one
of them may always be free to forgive and to bless."
As a fact, the priesthood was guilty of injustice towards
that peace- bringing Master who counselled his disciples
to obey the constituted hierarchy. " They are in the
seat of Moses," the Saviour said ; *' Do therefore that
which they tell you but not as they do themselves." On
another occasion he commanded ten lepers to shew their
persons to the priests, and they were cured on the road :
172
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
what touching abnegation in the Divine Worker of miracles,
Who thus ascribed to His most deadly enemies the very
honour of His miracles. For the rest, were those who
accused Christ of setting up a spurious corner-stone
acquainted themselves with the true one ? Had not the
Jews in the days of the Pharisees lost the science of that
which is at once the corner-stone, the cubic stone, the
philosophical stone — in a word, the fundamental stone of
the Kabalistic Temple, square at the base and triangular
above like the pyramids? By impeaching Jesus as an
innovator did they not proclaim that they had them-
selves forgotten antiquity? Was not that light which
Abraham saw and rejoiced extinguished for the unfaithful
children of Moses, and was it not recovered by Jesus,
Who made it shine with a new splendour ? To be quite
certain on the subject, the Gospel and Apocalypse of St.
John must be compared with the mysterious doctrines of
the Sepher Tetzirah and Zohar, It will then be realised
that Christianity, so far from being a heresy in Israel,
was the true orthodox tradition of Jewry, while it was
the Scribes and Pharisees who were sectarians. Further-
more, Christian orthodoxy is proved by the consent of the
world at large and by the suspension of the sovereign
priesthood, together with the perpetual sacrifice, in Israel
— the two indisputable marks of a true religion. Judaism
without a temple, without a High Priest and without a
sacrifice survives only as a dissident persuasion ; certain
persons are still Jews, but the Temple and Altar are
Christian.
There is a beautiful allegorical exposition in the
apocryphal gospels of this criterion of certitude in respect
of Christianity : its evidence is that of realisation. Some
children were amusing themselves by fashioning birds of
clay, and among them was the child Jesus. Each little
artist praised his own work, and only Jesus said nothing ;
but when He had moulded His birds, He clapped His
hands, telling them to fly, and they flew. So did Christ-
173
The History of Magic
ian institutions shew their superiority over those of the
ancient world ; the latter are dead, but Christianity is
alive. Considered as the fully realised and vital expres-
sion of the Kabalah — that is to say, of primitive tradition
— Christianity is still unknown, and hence that Kabalistic
and prophetic book called thft Apocalypse yet remains to
be explained, being incomprehensible without the Kaba-
listic Keys. The traditional interpretation was long pre-
served by the Johannites, or disciples of St. John ; but
the Gnoctics intervened — to the total confusion and loss
of everything, as will be made clear at a later stage. ^
We read in the Acts of the Apostles that St. Paul
at Ephesus collected all the books which treated of
things curious and burnt them in public. The reference
is no doubt to the old Goetic texts, or works of necro-
mancy. The loss is regrettable assuredly, since even
from the memorials of error there may shine some rays
of truth, while information may consequently be derived
which will prove precious to science.^ It is a matter of
general knowledge that at the advent of Christ Jesus the
oracles were silenced everywhere, and a voice went wailing
over the sea, crying : ** Great Pan is dead." A pagan
writer, who takes exception to the report, declares on
his own part that the oracles did not cease, but in a little
^ We shall meet with this sect accordingly, and it will be found
that the present remark is either {a) not intended to justify the alleged
traditional mterpretation or {b) that the initial reference has to be
qualified by its subsequent extension. Johannite Christianity has been
the subject of much romancing among the exponents of High-Grade
Masonry. Woodford's Cyclopcedia of Freemasonry identifies its followers
with Nazarenes and Nasarites, and adds that they regarded St. John the
Baptist as " the only true prophet." One order of Templar Masonry,
which is now extinct, seems to have claimed connection with the Johan-
nite sect.
^ I have quoted elsewhere the previous remark of the author on the
same subject as a curious example of how things are apt to strike a
French exponent of occultism at different periods of time and in other
states of emotion. " St. Paul burnt the books of Trismegistus " — not
rioetic texts or works of necromancy ; " Omar burned the disciples of
Trismegistus (?) and St. Paul. O persecutors ! O incendiaries ! O
coffers ! When will you finish your work of darkness and destruction !"
This is from the Rituel de la Haute Magie^ p. 327.
174"
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
while no one was found to consult them. The rectifi-
cation is valuable, for such an attempted justification
is more conclusive than the pretended calumny. Much
the same thing should be said concerning the works of
wonder, which fell into contempt in the presence of real
miracles. As a fact, if the higher laws of Nature are
obedient to true moral superiority, miracles become
supernatural like the virtues which produce them. This
theory detracts nothing from the power of God, while
the fact that the Astral Light is obedient to the superior
Light of Grace signifies in reality for us that the old
serpent of allegory places its vanquished head beneath the
foot of the Queen of Heaven.
175
CHAPTER II
THE WITNESS OF MAGIC TO CHRISTIANITY
Magic, being the science of universal equilibrium and
having the truth, reality and reason of being for its ab-
solute principle, accounts for all the antinomies and
reconciles all actualities which are in conflict one with
another by the one generating principle of every synthesis
— that harmony results from the analogy of opposites.
For the initiate of this science religion is not in doubt
because it exists, and we do not deny what is. Being is
being — n\n« "iK^x n^nx- The apparent opposition of reli-
gion and reason is the strength of both, establishing each
in its distinct domain and fructifying the negative side
of each by the positive side of the other : as we have just
said, it is the attainment of agreement by the corre-
spondence between things that are contrary. The cause
of all religious errors and confusions is that, in ignorance
of this great law, it has been sought to make religion a
philosophy and philosophy in its turn a religion, sub-
jecting matters of faith to the processes of science, which
is no less ridiculous than the subjection of science to the
blind obedience of faith. It is no more the province of
a theologian to affirm a mathematical absurdity or reject
the demonstration of a theorem than it is the province
of a man of learning, in the name of science, to oppose
or maintain the mysteries of dogma.
If we inquire of the Academy of Sciences whether it
is mathematically true that there are Three Persons in
one God and whether, on the basis of physiology, it can
be certified that Mary, the Mother of God, was con-
ceived immaculate, the Academy of Sciences will decline
176
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
to judge thereon, and it will be right. Scholarship has
no title to pronounce, as the questions belong to the realm
of faith. An article of faith is believed or is not believed,
but in either case it is not a matter of discussion : it is of
faith precisely because it eludes examination by science.
When Joseph de Maistre assures us that one of these
days we shall speak in terms of wonder about our actual
stupidity, he is referring, no doubt, to those people of
pretended strong mind who daily inform us that they will
believe in the truth of a dogma when it has been proved
scientifically. This is equivalent to saying that they will
believe when nothing is left for believing, when dogma
as such is destroyed, having become a scientific theorem.
It is another way of suggesting that we shall confess to
the infinite when it has been explained, determined,
circumscribed, defined, or, in a word, changed into the
finite. We will believe in the infinite when we are quite
certain that it does not exist ; we will admit the immensity
of the ocean when we sec it put into bottles. But then,
my friends, that which has been proved to you and
brought within your comprehension is henceforth a matter
of knowledge and not of faith. On the other hand, if
you are informed that the Pope has decided that two and
two are not four and that the square of the hypotenuse
is not equal to the squares drawn on the two other
sides of a right-angled triangle, you would be justified in
replying that the Pope has not so decided because he has
no title ; these things do not concern him and he may
not meddle therein. Here a disciple of Rousseau will
exclaim that this is all very well, but the Church does
require us to believe in things which are in formal opposi-
tion to mathematics. All mathematical science tells us
that the whole is greater than the part ; this notwithstand-
ing, when Jesus Christ communicates with his disciples.
He must hold His entire body in His hand and put His
head in His own mouth. The miserable pleasantry in
question occurs textually in Rousseau. It is easy to
177 M
The History of Magic
answer that the sophist is confounding science with faith
and the natural order with that which is supernatural or
divine. Were it claimed by religion that in the communi-
cation of the Eucharist our Saviour had two natural
bodies of the same form and size, and that one was eaten
by the other, science would be entitled to protest. But
religion lays down that the body of the Master is divinely
and sacramentally contained under the natural sign or
appearance of a fragment of bread. Once more, it is a
question of believing or not believing : whosoever reasons
thereon, and discusses the thing scientifically, deserves to
be classed as a fool.^
Truth in science is proved by exact demonstrations ;
truth in religion is proved by unanimity of faith and
holiness of works. We have authority in the Gospel to
recognise that he who could say to the paralytic : *' Take
up thy bed and walk,'* had the right to forgive sins.
Religion is true if it is the realisation of perfect morality.
Works are the proof of faith. It is permissible to ask
science whether Christianity has constituted a vast associa-
tion of men for whom the hierarchy is a principle,
obedience the rule and charity a law. If science answers,
on the basis of historical documents, that this is the case
but that the r.ssociation of Christians has failed in the
matter of charity, then I take it at its own word, which
admits the existence of charity, since it recognises that
there can be deficiency therein. Charity is at once a great
word and a great thing ; it is a word which did not exist
^ In his Fiindatnental Philosophy^ James Balmes seeks to shew that
the Eucharistic Mystery, understood in the literal sense of transubstan-
tiation, is not absurd in itself, that is to say, is not intrinsically contradic-
tory. To establish that it is, one must demonstrate : {a) that to abstract
passive sensibility from matter is to destroy the principle of contradiction ;
\b) that the correspondences between our sense organs and objects are
intrinsically immutable ; {c) that it is absolutely necessary for impres-
sions to be transmitted to the sensitive faculties of the soul by those organs
and that they can never be transmitted otherwise. See Book III, Ex-
tension and Space, c. 33, Triumph of Religion. I make this citation
because it seems to me that Eliphas Levi acted incautiously in debating
the observation of Rousseau.
178
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magi a
prior to Christianity and that which it stands for is the
sum total of religion. Is not the spirit of charity the
Divine Spirit made visible on earth ? Has not this Spirit
manifested its sensible existence by acts, institutions,
monuments and by immortal works ? To be brief, we
do not understand how a sceptic, who is a man of good
faith, can see a daughter of St. Vincent de Paul without
wishing to kneel and pray. The spirit of charity — this
indeed is God ; it is immortality in the soul ; it is the
hierarchy, obedience, the forgiveness of injuries, the
simplicity and integrity of faith.
The separated sects are death-struck at the root be-
cause in separating they were wanting in charity, while in
trying to reason on faith they were wanting in simple good
sense. It is in the sects that dogma is absurd because
it is pseudo-reasonable. As such it must be a scientific
theorem or nothing. Now, in religion we know that the
letter kills and that the spirit alone gives life ; but what
is the spirit in question unless it be that of charity ^. The
faith which moves mountains and withstands martyrdom,
the generosity which gives all, the eloquence which speaks
with the tongue of men and angels — all this, says St.
Paul, is nothing without charity. He adds that know-
ledge may vanish away and prophecy may cease, but
charity is eternal. Charity and its works — hereof is the
reality in religion : now true reason never denies reality,
for it is the demonstration of that being which is truth.
It is in this manner that philosophy extends a hand to
religion, but without ever wishing to usurp its domain,
and, on this condition, religion blesses, encourages and
enlightens philosophy by its loving splendours. Charity
is the mysterious bond which, according to the dream of
Greek initiates, must reconcile Eros and Anteros. It is
that coping of the door of Solomon's Temple which
unites the two pillars Jachin and Boaz ; it is the common
guarantee between rights and duties, between authority
and liberty, between the strong and weak, between the
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people and the government, man also and woman.
It is the divine sentiment which is requisite for life in
human science ; it is the absolute of good, as the triple
principle Being-Reality- Reason is the absolute of the true.
These elucidations have been necessary for the proper
interpretation of that beautiful symbol of the Magi
adoring the Saviour in the manger. The kings are three
— one white, one tawny and one black ; they offer gold,
frankincense and myrrh. The reconciliation of opposites
is expressed by this double triad, and it is precisely that
which we have just been seeking to explain. Christianity,
as expected by the Magi, was in effect the consequence of
their secret doctrine ; but this Benjamin of ancient Israel
caused, by the fact of its birth, the death of its mother.
The Magic of Light, that of the true Zoroaster, of
Melchisedek and Abraham came to an end with the
advent of the Great Falfiller. Henceforth, in a world of
miracles, mere prodigies could be nothing more than a
scandal and magical orthodoxy was transfigured into the
orthodoxy of religion. Those who dissented could be
only illuminati and sorcerers ; the very name of Magic
could be interpreted only according to its evil sense, and
it is under this inhibition that we shall follow hereafter
its manifestations through the centuries.
The first arch-heretic mentioned in the traditions of
the Church was Simon the Magician ; his legend embodies
a multitude of marvels ; it is an integral part of our
subject and we shall endeavour to separate its basis from
the cloud of fables by which it is surrounded. Simon
was by nationality a Jew and is believed to have been
born in the Samaritan town of Gitton/ His master in
Magic was a sectarian named Dositheus, who gave out
that he was sent by God and was the Messiah foretold
by the prophets.^ Under his tuition, Simon not only
^ The place of his birth is uncertain ; Cyprus is one of the alternatives.
^ This is Dositheus of Samaria, who was contemporary with Christ.
There is an account of him by St. Epiphanius and he is also mentioned
by Photius.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
acquired the illusory arts but also certain natural secrets
which belong really to the tradition of the Magi. He
possessed the science of the Astral Fire and could attract
great currents thereof, making himself seem impassible
and incombustible. He had also the power to rise and
remain in the air. Feats of this kind have been per-
formed frequently, in the absence of science and, so to
speak, accidentally, by enthusiasts intoxicated with Astral
Light, as for example the convulsionaries of St. Medard ;
and the phenomena recur at the present day in the
mediumistic state. Simon magnetised at a distance those
who believed in him and appeared to them under various
figures. He produced images and visible reflections — e.g,^
everyone, on a certain occasion, thinking that they could
see fantastic trees in a bare country. Moreover, objects
which are normally inanimate were moved in his vicinity,
as furniture is now moved within the atmosphere of
Home, the American ; and, finally, when he intended to
enter or leave a house the doors creaked, shook and
ended by opening of their own accord.
Simon performed these wonders before the chief
people of Samaria, and as his actual achievements were in
due course exaggerated, the thaumaturgist passed for a
divine being. It came about also that as he owed his
power to states of excitement by which reason is dis-
turbed, so he came to regard himself as such an excep-
tional being that he did not hesitate to claim divine
honours and dreamed modestly of usurping the worship
of the whole world. His crises or ecstasies produced
extraordinary physical results. Sometimes he appeared
pale, withered, broken, like an old man at the point
of death ; sometimes the luminous fluid revitalised his
blood, so that his eyes shone, his skin became smooth
and soft, and he appeared regenerated and renewed
suddenly. The easterns have great capacity for the
amplification of wonders ; they claime(/ to have seen
Simon passing from childhood to decrepitude and again at
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The History of Magic
his will returning from decrepitude into childhood. His
miracles were noised abroad everywhere, till he became
not only the idol of Jewish Samaria but also of the*
neighbouring countries.
However, the worshippers of marvels are generally
hungry for new emotions and they did not fail to get
weary of that which at first had astonished them. The
Apostle St. Philip having reached Samaria, to preach the
gospel therein, a new current of enthusiasm was thus
started, with the result that Simon lost all his prestige.
He was conscious, moreover, that his abnormal states had
ceased, as he thought through loss of power ; he believed
that he was surpassed by magicians more learned than
himself, and the course which he took was to attach
himself to the apostles in the hope of studying, dis-
covering or buying their secret.
Simon was certainly not an initiate of Transcendental
Magic, which would have told him that wisdom and
sanctity are needful for those who would direct the secret
forces of Nature without being broken thereby ; that to
play with such terrible weapons without understanding
them was the act of a fool ; and that swift and terrible
death awaits those who profane the Sanctuary of Nature.
Simon was consumed by an unquenchable thirst, like
that of a drunkard ; the suspension of his ecstasy was the
loss of all his happiness, and made ill by past excesses,
he thought to regain health in renewed intoxication.
One does not willingly come back to the state of a
simple mortal after posing as a god. To recover that
which he had lost Simon submitted therefore to all the
rigours of apostolic austerity ; he watched, he prayed,
he fasted, but the v/onders did not return. Then he
reflected that between Jews it might be possible to reach
an understanding, and he offered money to St. Peter.
The chief of the apostles drove him indignantly away ;
and he who received so willingly the contributions of
his disciples was now at the end of his resources ; he
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
abandoned forthwith the society of men who had shewn
such disinterestedness, and with the money which St.
Peter disdained he purchased a female slave named
Helena.^
Mystical vagaries are always akin to debauch. Simon
became passionately enamoured of his servant ; that
passion, at once weakening and exalting, restored his
cataleptic states and the morbid phenomena which he
termed his gift of wonders. A mythology full of magical
reminiscences, combined with erotic dreams, issued fully
armed from his brain ; he undertook pilgrimages like the
apostles, carrying Helena with him, dogmatising and
shewing himself to those who were willing to worship
and doubtless also to pay him.
According to Simon, the first manifestation of God
was by means of a perfect splendour which produced its
reflection immediately. He was himself this sun of souls
and the reflection was Helena, whom he affected to call
Selene, being the name of the moon in Greek. Now
the moon of Simon came down at the beginning of the
ages on that earth which the magus had mapped out in
his perpetual dreams. There she became a mother,
impregnated by the thought of his sun, and she brought
into the world angels, whom she reared by herself with-
out speaking of them to their father. The angels
rebelled against her and imprisoned her in a mortal
body. It was then that the splendour of God was
compelled to descend in its turn that it might redeem
Helena, and so the Jew Simon was manifested on earth.
There he had to overcome death and carry his Helena
through the air, followed by the triumphant choir of
the elect, while the rest of mankind was abandoned on
earth to the eternal tyranny of the angels. Thus the
arch-heretic, imitating Christianity but in the reverse
^ It is, I believe, one of the Christian apologists who mentions that
Helen was found by Simon in a house of ill-fame at Tyre. It is said
otherwise that she was Helen of Troy in a previous incarnation.
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sense, affirmed the eternal reign of revolt and evil, repre-
sented the world as created or at least completed by
demons, destroyed the order and the hierarchy, to pose
alone with his concubine as the way, the truth and the
life. Here was the doctrine of Antichrist, and it was
not to perish with Simon, for it has been perpetuated
to our own days. Indeed prophetic traditions of Chris-
tianity speak of his transitory reign and triumph to
come as heralding the most terrible calamities. Simon
claimed the title of saint and, by a curious coincidence,
the chief of a modern Gnostic sect which recalls all
the sensuous mysticism of the first arch-heretic — the
inventor of the " free woman " — is also named Saint-
Simon. Cainism is the name which might be given to
all the false revelations issued from this impure source.
They are dogmas of malediction and of hatred against
universal harmony and social order ; they are disordered
passions affirming license in the place of duty, sensual
love instead of chaste and devoted love, the prostitute in
place of the mother, and Helena, concubine of Simon, in
place of Mary, the mother of the Saviour.
Simon became a notoriety and repaired to Rome,
where the emperor, attracted by all extraordinary spec-
tacles, was disposed to welcome him : this emperor was
Nero. The illuminated Jew astonished the crowned
fool by a trick which is common in jugglery. He was
decapitated, but afterwards saluted the emperor, his head
being restored to his shoulders. He caused furniture
to move and doors to open ; in a word, he acted as a
veritable medium and became sorcerer in ordinary at
the orgies of Nero and the banquets of Trimalcyon.
According to the legend makers, it was to rescue the
Jews of Rome from the doctrine of Simon that St. Peter
himself visited that capital of the world. Nero, by means
of his inferior spies, was informed speedily that a new
worker of Israeli tish wonders had arrived to make war
on his own enchanter, and he resolved to bring them
184
DISPUTATION BETWEEN SIMON THE MAGICIAN AND
SS. PETER AND PAUL
Facing p. 184
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
together for his amusement. Petronius and Tigellinus
were perhaps at this feast. ^
" May peace be with you," said the prince of apostles
on entering. " We have nothing to do with your peace/*
answered Simon. *' It is by war that truth is discovered.
Peace between adversaries is the victory of one and the
defeat of the other."
St. Peter answered : *' Why do you reject peace ?
The vices of men have created war, but peace ever abides
with virtue."
** Virtue is power and skill," said Simon. ** For
myself I face the fire, I rise in the air, I restore plants, I
change stones into bread ; and you, what do you do .'^ "
** I pray for you," said St. Peter, " that you may not
perish the victim of your enchantments."
** Keep your prayers; they will not ascend to heaven
as quickly as myself."
And behold the magician passing out by a window
and rising in the air outside. Whether this was accom-
plished by means of some aerostatic apparatus concealed
under his long robes or whether he was lifted up, like
the convulsionaries of Paris the Deacon, owing to an
exaltation of the Astral Light, we are unable to say ; but
during this phenomenon St. Peter was praying on his
knees, and Simon fell suddenly with a great cry, to be
raised with his thighs broken. Nero imprisoned St. Peter,
who seemed a far less diverting magician than Simon ;
the latter died of his fall. The whole of this history,
which belongs to the popular rumours of the period, is
now relegated, though perhaps wrongly, to the region of
apocryphal legends. On such account it is not less
remarkable or less worthy to be preserved.
* Because they were both favourites of Nero, or because the reference
to a feast reminded ^liphas L^vi of the celebrated Banquet in the
Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter. Sophronius TigelHnus was one of Nero's
ministers.
* The dispute between St. Peter and Simon the Magician is not a
matter of popular rumour ; it is a methodical account contained in one
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The History of Magic
The sect of Simon did not end with himself, and his
successor was one of his disciples, named Menander.^
He did not pose as a god, being contented with the role
of a prophet ; but when he baptized proselytes, a visible
fire came down upon the water. He also promised im-
mortality of soul and body as the result of this magical
immersion, and in the days of St. Justin, there were still
followers of Menander who firmly believed themselves
immortal. The deaths which occurred among them by
no means disabused the others, for those who died were
excommunicated forthwith, on the ground that they had
been false brethren. For these believers death was an
actual apostasy and their immortal ranks were filled up
by enrolling new proselytes. Those who understand the
extent of human folly will not be surprised to hear that
in this present year, being 1858, there exists in America
and France a fanatical sect in continuation of that of
Menander.^
The qualification of magician added to the name of
Simon rendered Magic a thing of horror to Christians ;
but they did not on this account cease to honour the
memory of the Magi-Kings who adored the Saviour in
His cradle.
of the forged Recognitions ascribed ^to St. Clement. It will be under-
stood that the version presented by Eliphas Levi is decorated by his own
imagination. It seems generally regarded as certain that Simon visited
Rome to enrol disciples, and there is the authority of Eusebius for some
kind of meeting with St. Peter.
* It might be more accurate to say that there were many successors,
of whom Menander was the chief. So also there were many Simonian
sects, including the school which followed Dositheus, described by Levi
and others as the master of Simon. Menander claimed to be the envoy
of the Supreme Power of God.
- They were not included at the period — about 1865 — in La France
Mystique of Erdan, though it contained chases inouies; and they are not
found among les petites religions de Paris at the present day, though it
contains a Gnostic church confessing to a hierarchic government and,
I believe, with an authorised branch at San Francisco — perhaps less in
partibus ijifidelium than is the sect in its own country.
186
CHAPTER III
THE DEVIL
By its clear formulation of concepts respecting the
Divine, Christianity leads us to the understanding of God
as the most absolute and the most purest love, while it
defines, not less clearly, the spirit which is opposed to
God, the spirit of revolt and hatred : hereof is Satan.
But this spirit is not a personality and is not to be re-
garded as a kind of black god : it is a perversity which
is common to all extralineal intelligences. *' My name is
legion," says Satan in the Gospel, *' for we are many.'*
The birth of intelligence may be compared to the Star of
the Morning and, after it has shone for an instant, if it
fall of its own accord into the void of darkness, we may
apply to it that apostrophe which was uttered by Isaiah
to the king of Babylon : '' How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning ? '' But does
this mean that the celestial Lucifer, the Morning Star of
intelligence, has been changed into a brand of hell ? Can
the name of Light-bearer be applied justly to the angel
of trespass and of darkness ? We think not, more espe-
cially if it be understood, as we understand, who have
the magical tradition behind us, that the hell personified
by Satan, and sym^ jlised by the old serpent, is that central
fire which encompasses the earth, consuming all that it
produces and devouring its own tail, like the serpent of
Kronos — in a word, that Astral Light of which the
Almighty spoke to Cain when He said : " If thou doest
evil, sin shall be straightway at thy gates " — that is to say,
disorder will take possession of all thy senses ; '* yet
187
"The History of Magic
unto thee I have made subject the lust of death, and it
is for thee to rule it." ^
The royal and almost divine personification of Satan
is a blunder which goes back to the false Zoroaster, or
otherwise, to the sophisticated doctrine of the later and
materialistic Magi of Persia ; it was they who represented
the two poles of the intellectual world as deities, making
a divinity out of passive force in contradistinction to that
force which is active. We have indicated that the same
grave error was made by Indian mythology. Ahriman
or Siva is the father of the demon, as the latter is under-
stood by superstitious makers of legend, and hence it
was said by our Saviour: *^ The devil is a liar like his
father.'' On this question the Church rests satisfied
with the Gospel texts and has published no dogmatic
decisions, having the definition of the devil as their object.
Good Christians avoid even naming him, while religious
moralists recommend the faithful to take no concern
regarding him, seeking to resist his arts by thinking only
of God. We cannot but admire this wise reserve on the
part of priestly teaching. Why indeed should the light of
doctrine be reflected on him who is intellectual obscurity
and darkest night of the heart } Let the spirit which
would distract us from the knowledge of God remain
unknown by us. It is assuredly not of our intention to
perform what the Church has omitted ; we certify on
such a subject only as to the secret instruction of initiates
in the occult sciences. They have said that the Great
Magical Agent — accurately termed Lucifer because it is
the vehicle of light and the receptacle of all forms — is a
mediating force diffused throughout creation ; that it
serves for creation and destruction ; that the fall of Adam
was an erotic intoxication which made his race subject to
^ I have given Levi's version literally without pretending to account
for it. In the authorised version the passage reads : " If thou doest not
well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou
shalt rule over him." Genesis, iv. 7.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
that fatal light ; that all amorous passion which invades
the senses is a whirlpool of this light, seeking to draw us
down into the gulf of death ; that madness, hallucina-
tions, visions, ecstasies constitute an exceedingly dange-
rous exaltation of this interior phosphorus ; finally, that
the light in question is of the nature of fire, that it is
warming and vivifying in its prudent use, but that it
burns, dissolves and destroys in its excess. Over this
light man is called, on the one hand, to assume a sove-
reign empire, so earning his immortality, but, on the
other, he is menaced by the intoxication, absorption and
eternal destruction thereof. In its devouring, avenging
and fatal aspect, the Astral Light may be called the fire
of hell, the serpent of legend, while the tormented sin
which abounds therein, the tears and the gnashing of
teeth on the part of the abortions that it consumes, the
phantom of life which escapes them and seems to insult
their misery — all this may be termed the devil or Satan.
Among the pomps and works of hell may be included,
in fine, those actions, those illusionary images of plea-
sure, wealth and glory which are misdirected by the
vertigo of this light.
Father Hiiarion Tissot regards certain nervous dis-
eases which are accompanied by hallucinations and deli-
rium as diabolical possessions and, understood in the
sense of the Kabalists, he is right assuredly. Whatso-
ever delivers our soul to the fatality of vertigo is truly
infernal, since heaven is the eternal reign of order, intel-
ligence and liberty. The possessed people of the Gospel
fled away from Jesus Christ ; the oracles were silenced in
the presence of the Apostles ; while those who are prey
to the disease of hallucination have ever manifested an
invincible repugnance for initiates and sages. The sus-
pension of oracles and obsessions proved the triumph of
human liberty over fatality. When astral diseases reappear,
it is an ominous sign of spiritual enervation, and mani-
festations of this kind are followed invariably by fatal
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The History of Magic
disorders. The disturbances here referred to continued
till the French Revolution, and the fanatics of Saint-
Medard were the prophets of its sanguinary calamities.
The famous criminologist Torreblanca, who had gone to
the root of Diabolical Magic, describes accurately all the
phenomena of astral disturbance, when classifying the
works of the demon. Here are some extracts from
the 15th chapter of his work on Operative Magic :^
(i) The demon is endeavouring continually to lead us
into error. (2) He deludes the senses by disturbing the
imagination, though he cannot change its nature. (3)
When things abnormal are manifested to the eye of man,
an imaginary body assumes shape in the mind and so
long as that phantom remains therein, the phenomena
continue. (4) The demon destroys equilibrium in the
imagination by a disturbance of the vital functions,
whether by irregularity in health or actual disease. (5)
When some morbid cause has destroyed this equilibrium,
and that also of reason, waking dream becomes possible
and that which has no existence assumes the semblance
of reality. (6) The mental perception of images in this
manner makes sight unworthy of trust. (7) Visions
are bodied forth, but they are merely thought-forms.
(8) The ancients distinguished two orders of disease, one
of them being the perception of imaginary forms, which
was termed frenzy, and the other corybantism, or the
hearing of voices and other sounds which have no
existence.
It follows from these statements, which are curious
in several respects, that disease is attributed by Torre-
blanca to the demon, who indeed is disease itself, with
which we should agree entirely — if permitted by dogmatic
authority. The recurring efforts of the Astral Light to
disintegrate and absorb entities are part of its nature ;
^ I suppose that reference is intended to Epitome Delictorum^ sive de
Magia^ in qua aperta vel occulta invocatio DcFmonuin^ &c., 4to. I have
no record of the first edition, but it was reprinted at Leyden in 1679.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
its ceaseless currents have a wearing effect like water and
it consumes even as fire, for it is the very essence and
dissolving force of fire. The spirit of perversity and the
love of destruction which characterise those whom it
governs are instincts of this force. They are further
consequent on the suffering of the soul, which is con-
scious of incomplete life and feels torn in opposite
directions. The soul yearns to make an end of itself,
yet fears to die alone, and therefore would include all
creation in its destruction. Such astral perversity assumes
frequently the form of the hatred of children ; an un-
known power impels certain subjects to kill them, and
imperious voices seem to demand their death. Dr. Brierre
de Boismont cites terrible examples of this mania, recall-
ing the crimes of Papavoine and Henriette Cornier.
Sufferers from astral perversion are malevolent, and
they are jealous at the joy of others ; they are especially
inimical to hope, and even when offering consolation they
choose the most desperate and heartrending figures of
speech. Tht explanation is that their life is synonymous
with suffering and that they have been whirled into the
dance of death. It is, moreover, astral perversion and
the lust of death which abuses the act of generation,
leading to its perversion or dishonour by sacrilegious
mockeries and shameful pleasantries. Obscenity is a
blasphemy against life. Each of these vices is personified
by a black idol or by a demon, which is the negative and
distorted reflection of the divinity who communicates life :
these are idols of death. Moloch is the fatality which
devours infants. Satan and Nisroch are gods of hatred,
fatality and despair. Astarte, Lilith, Nehamah, Ashta-
roth are idols of debauchery and abortion. Adramelech
is the god of murder, while Belial is that of eternal
revolt and anarchy. Such are the monstrous conceptions
of reason, when it pauses on the verge of extinction and
slavishly worships its destroyer, so that it may reach the
end of its torment by the destroyer absorbing it. Accord-
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The History of Magic
ing to the Kabalists, the true name of Satan is that ot
Jehovah reversed, for Satan is not a black god but the
negation of Deity. He is the personification of atheism
and idolatry. The devil is not a personality for initiates
but a force created with a good object, though it can be
applied to evil : it is really the instrument of liberty. They
represented this force, which presides over physical gene-
ration, under the mythological figure of the horned god
Pan, and hence comes the goat of the Sabbath, brother
of the old serpent, the light-bearer or phosphorus, con-
verted by poets into the false Lucifer of legend.
192
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST PAGANS
The eternal miracle of God is the unchangeable order of
His providence in the harmonies of Nature ; prodigies
are derangements and are attributable only to degenera-
tion in the creature. Divine miracle is thus a providential
reaction for the restoration of the broken order. When
Jesus cured the possessed He calmed them and sus-
pended the marvels which they produced ; when the
apostles subdued the exaltation of the pythonesses they
put an end to divination. The spirit of error is a spirit
of agitation and subversion ; the spirit of truth brings
tranquillity and peace in its path. Such was the civi-
lising influence of Christianity at its dawn ; but those
passions which are friends of disturbance did not, without
a struggle, leave it in possession of the palm of easy
victory. Expiring polytheism drew powers from the
Magic of the old sanctuaries ; to the mysteries of the
Gospel it still opposed those of Eleusis. Apollonius of
Tyana was set up as a parallel to the Saviour of the
world, and Philostratus undertook to construct a legend
on the subject of this new deity. Thereafter came the
Emperor Julian, who would have been himself deified if
the javelin which slew him had not also struck the last
blow at Caesarian idolatry. The enforced and decrepit
rebirth of a religion which was dead in its forms was a
literal abortion, and Julian, who attempted it, was doomed
to perish with the senile offspring which he strove to
bring into the world.
This notwithstanding, Apollonius and Julian were
two curious, even great personalities, and their history is
193 N
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epoch-making in the Annals of Magic. Allegorical
legends were in fashion at that period. Those who were
masters embodied their doctrine in their personality, and
those who were initiated disciples wrote fables which com-
bined the secrets of initiation. The history of Apol-
lonius by Philostratus, too absurd if it be taken literally,
becomes memorable when its symbolism is examined
according to the data of science. It is a kind of pagan
gospel, opposed to that of Christianity ; it is a secret
doctrine at large, and we are in a position to reconstruct
and explain it.
In the third book of Philostratus, the initial chapter
contains an account of Hyphasis, a wonderful river which
rises in a certain plain and is lost in unapproachable
regions. That river represents magical knowledge,
which is simple in its first principles but difficult to
deduce accurately in respect of final consequences.^
Philostratus tells us in this connection that marriages
are not fruitful unless consecrated by the balsam of trees
which grow on the banks of Hyphasis, The fish of this
river are sacred to Venus ; their crest is blue, the scales
are of many colours and their tail is golden : they can
raise the tail at will. In the river there is also an animal
resembling a white worm, the stewing of which produces
an inflammable oil that can be kept in glass only. The
animal is reserved only for the king's service, as it has
power to overthrow walls. When the grease of it is
exposed to the air it ignites, and there is then nothing in
the whole world with which the flame can be extinguished.
By the fish of the river Hyphasis, ApoUonius signifies
universal configuration which magnetic experiments have
recently proved to be blue on one side, golden on that
which is opposite and of many colours at the centre.
^ It has to be observed that the Hyphasis was a certain river of India
which is assigned by tradition as the boundary of Alexander's conquests.
Had l^liphas Levi been acquainted with this fact he might have alle-
gorised with success thereon.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
The white worm is the Astral Light, which resolves into
oil when condensed by a triple fire, and such oil is the
universal medicine. It can only be contained by glass,
this being a non-conductor for the Astral Light, its
porousness being inappreciable. This secret is reserved
to the king, which means an initiate of the first order,
for it is truly concerned with a force by which cities can
be destroyed. Some important secrets are here indicated
with great clearness.
In the next chapter Philostratus speaks of unicorns
and says that the horn of these animals can be fashioned
into drinking-cups which are a safe-guard against all
poisons. The single horn of the symbolical creature
represents hierarchic unity, and hence Philostratus adds,
on the authority of Damis, that the cups in question
are also exclusive to kings. ** Happy," says Apollonius,
** is he who is never intoxicated but in drinking out of
such a goblet."
Damis narrates further that Apollonius met with a
woman who was white from feet to breasts but black in
the upper region. His disciples were alarmed at the
prodigy, but the master gave her his hand, for he knew
her. He told them that she was the Indian Venus, whose
colours are those of the bull Apis, adored by the Egyp-
tians. This harlequin female is magical science, the
white limbs — or created forms — of which reveal the black
head, or that supreme cause which is unknown to man
at large. But Philostratus and Damis knew, and it was
under emblems like these that they gave expression in
concealment to the doctrine of Apollonius. The secret
of the Great Work is contained in the fifth to the tenth
chapters of this third book, and the form of symbolism
adopted is that of dragons defending the entrance to a
palace of the wise.^ There are three species of dragons
^ It is noticeable that the alchemists of past centuries, who were so
apt to see the Hermetic Mystery at large in all literature, and who
fathered many mythical treatises on the great and the holy men of old,
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The History of Magic
— dwellers respectively of marshes, plains and moun^
tain. The mountain is Sulphur, the marsh Mercury and
the plain is the Salt of the Philosophers. The dragons
of the plain are pointed on the back, like a saw-fish, re-
ferring to the acid potency of salt. Those of the moun-
tains have golden scales and a golden beard, while the
sound of their creeping movement is like the tinkling of
copper. In their head is a stone by which all miracles
can be worked. They bask on the shores of the Red
Sea and they are caught by the help of a red cloth em-
broidered with golden letters ; on these enchanted letters
they lay their head and fall asleep, and they are then
decapitated with an axe. Who does not recognise here
the Stone of the Philosophers, the Magistery at the Red
and the famous regimen of fire, represented by golden
letters } Under the name of Citadel of the Wise, Philo-
stratus goes on to describe the Athanor as a hill sur-
rounded by a mist but open on the southern side. It
has a well four paces in breadth, from which an azure
vapour rises, drawn up by the warmth of the sun and
displaying all colours of the rainbow. The bottom of
the well is sanded with red arsenic. In its vicinity is a
basin filled with fire and thence rises a livid flame, odour-
less and smokeless, and never higher or lower than the
basin-edge. There are also two reservoirs of black stone,
in one of which rain is stored and in the other wind.
The rain-cistern is opened when there is excessive
drought and then clouds come forth which water the
whole country. It would be difficult to describe more
exactly the Secret Fire of the Philosophers and that
which they term their Balneum Marice, It follows from
are silent regarding ApoUonius. I am far from admitting the interpre-
tation of iliphas L6vi, as Philostratus belongs to the dawn of the third
century, when alchemy may be said to have been unborn ; but I am sure
that if the early expositors had known the life of ApoUonius, they might
almost have suspected something. Even the Abbe Pemety missed the
obvious opportunity in his discourse on the Hermetic significance of
the Greek and Egyptian fables.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
this account that the ancient alchemists employed elec-
tricity, magnetism and steam in their Great Work.
Philostratus speaks subsequently of the Philosophical
Stone itself, which he calls indifferently a Stone and Light.
** The profane are not permitted to discover it, because it
vanishes if not laid hold of according to the processes of
the Art. It is the wise only who, by means of certain
verbal formulae and rites, can attain the Pantarba. This is
the name of the Stone which at night has the appearance
of fire, being flaming and sparkling, while in the day
it dazzles by its brightness. This light is a subtle
matter of admirable virtue, for it attracts all that is
near it.^
The above revelation concerning the secret doctrines
of Apollonius proves that the Philosophical Stone is no
other than an universal magnet, formed of the Astral
Light condensed and fixed about a centre. It is an
artificial phosphorus containing the concentrated virtues
of all generative heat, and the multitude of allegories and
traditions extant concerning it are as testimonies to its
certain existence.'^
The entire life of Apollonius, as recorded by Philo-
stratus, following Damis the Assyrian, is a tissue of
apologues and parables, the concealed doctrine of great
masters of initiation being written in this manner at the
period, as already intimated. We know therefore why
the recital embodies fables and underneath the text of
these fables we should expect to find, and may even
look to understand, the secret knowledge of the
hierophants.
His great science and conspicuous virtues notwith-
standing, Apollonius was not a successor in the hierarchic
school of the Magi. His initiation had India as its
^ It must be remembered that the Stone in symbolism is far older
than the particular symbol which is called the Philosophical Stone, or
Stone of Alchemy.
* The last statement obtains in respect of the Mystic Stone, as under-
stood, for example, by Zoharic writers.
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The History of Magic
source and he was addicted to the enervating practices
of the Brahmins ; further he preached rebellion and
regicide openly : he was a great character in a wrong
path. The figure of the Emperor Julian seems more
poetic and beautiful than that of ApoUonius ; he main-
tained on the throne of the world all the austerity of a
sage ; and he sought to transpose the young sap of
Christianity into the enfeebled body of Hellenism. He
was a noble maniac, guilty only of too much devotion
to the associations of the fatherland and the images of
its ancestral gods. As a counterpoise to the realising
efficacity of Christian doctrine, he called Black Magic to
his aid and plunged into darksome evocations, following
the lead of Jamblichus and Maximus of Ephesus. But
the gods whom he desired to resuscitate in their youth
and beauty appeared before him cold and decrepit, shrink-
ing from life and light, and ready to fly before the sign
of the cross.
The closing had been taken in full according to the
grade of Hellenism, and the Galilean had conquered.
Julian died like a hero, without blaspheming Him who
overcame, as it has been falsely pretended.^ Ammianus
Marcellinus portrays his Jast moments at length : they
were those of a warrior and philosopher. The maledic-
tions of Christian sacerdotalism echoed long over his
tomb; has not the Saviour, that lover of noble souls,
pardoned adversaries less interesting and less generous
than the unfortunate Julian .'*
On the death of this emperor, Magic and idolatry were
involved in one and the same universal reprobation. At
this time there came into existence those secret associa-
tions of adepts, to which Gnostics and Manicheans
gravitated at a later period. The societies in question
* The introduction to the Dogme de la Haute Magie says : {a) That
Julian was one of the illuminated and an initiate of the first order ; {I))
That he was a Gnostic allured by the allegories of Greek polytheism ;
(^) That he had the satisfaction of expiring like Epaminondas with the
periods of Cato.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
were the depositaries of a tradition of errors and truths
admixed ; but they transmitted, under the seal of terrific
pledges, the Great Arcanum of ancient omnipotence,
together with the ever- frustrated hopes of extinct
worships and fallen priesthoods.
199
CHAPTER V
LEGENDS
The strange narratives embodied in the Golden Legend^
how fabulous soever they may be, are referable notwith-
standing to the highest Christian antiquity. They are
parables rather than histories ; the style is simple and
.eastern, like that of the Gospels ; and their traditional
existence proves that a species of mythology had been
devised to conceal the Kabalistic mysteries of Johannite
initiation. The Golden Legend is a Christian Talmud
expressed in allegories and apologues. Studied from
this point of view, the newer in proportion as it is more
ancient, the work will become of real importance and
highest interest.^ One of the narratives in this Legend
so full of mysteries characterises the conflict of Magic
and dawning Christianity in a manner which is equally
dramatic and startling. It is like an outline in advance
of Chateaubriand's Martyrs and the Faust of Goethe
combined.
Justina was a young and lovely pagan maiden,
daughter of a priest of the idols, after the manner of
Cymodoce. Her window opened on a court which gave
upon the Christian church, so that she heard daily the
pure and recollected voice of a deacon reading the holy
gospels aloud. The unknown words touched and stirred
her heart, so deeply indeed that when her mother
remarked one evening how grave she seemed and sought
^ The Golden Legend was compiled about 1275 by Jacobus de
Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa. His authorities were {a) Eusebius,
{b) St. Jerome, (r) legendary matter. I am sure that Kabalistic mysteries
and Johannite initiation must look elsewhere for their records. The
suggestion, however, is not worth debating.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
to be the confidant of her preoccupations, Justina fell
at her feet and said : " Bless me, my mother, or forgive
me : I am a Christian." The mother wept and embraced
her, after which she returned to her husband and related
what she had heard. That night in their sleep the
parents were both visited by the same dream. A divine
light descended upon them, a sweet voice called them
and said : *' Come unto me, all ye that are afflicted and
I will comfort you. Come, ye beloved of my father,
and I will give unto you the kingdom which has been
prepared for you from the beginning of the world.'*
The morning dawned; father and mother blessed
their daughter. All three were enrolled among the
catechumens and, after the usual probation, they were
admitted to Holy Baptism. Justina returned white
and radiant from the church, between her mother and
aged father, when two forbidding men, wrapped in their
mantles, passed as Faust and Mephistopheles going by
Margaret : they were Cyprian the magician and his dis-
ciple Acladius. They stopped dazzled by the appari-
tion, but Justina went on without seeing them and
reached home with her family.
The scene now changes and we are in the laboratory
of Cyprian. Circles have been traced, a slaughtered
victim still palpitates by a smoking chafing-dish ; the
genius of darkness stands in the presence of the magician,
saying : " Thou hast called me ; I come. Speak : what
dost thou require } '* — '* I love a virgin.*' — " Seduce her.*'
— *'She is a Christian.*' — *' Denounce her.** — " I would
possess and not lose her : canst thou aid me } '* — " I
tempted Eve, who was innocent and conversed daily
with God Himself. If thy virgin be Christian, know
that it is I who caused Jesus Christ to be crucified." —
" Thou wilt deliver her into my hands, therefore.** —
" Take this magical unguent, and anoint the threshold
of her dwelling : the rest concerns me."
And now Justina is asleep in her small and simple
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The History of Magic
room, but Cyprian is at the door murmuring sacrilegious
words and performing horrible rites. The demon creeps
to the pillow of the young girl and instils voluptuous
dreams full of the image of Cyprian, whom she seems
to meet again on issuing from the church. This time,
however, she looks at him ; she listens, while the things
which he whispers fill her heart with trouble. But she
moves suddenly, she awakes and signs herself with the
cross. The demon vanishes and the seducer, doing
sentinel at the door, waits vainly through the whole night.
On the morrow he renews his evocations and loads
his infernal accomplice with bitter reproaches. The
latter confesses his inability, is driven forth in disgrace,
and Cyprian invokes a demon of superior class, who
transforms himself by turns into a young girl and a
beautiful youth, tempting Justina by advice as well as
caresses. She is on the pomt of yielding, but her good
angel helps her ; she joins inspiration to the sign of
the cross and expels the evil spirit. Cyprian thereupon
invokes the king of hell and Satan arrives in person.
He visits Justina with all the woes of Job and spreads
a frightful plague through Antioch ; the oracles, at his
instigation, declare that it will cease only when Justina
shall satisfy Venus and love, who are alike outraged.
Justina, however, prays in public for the people, and
the pest ceases. Satan is baffled in his turn ; Cyprian
compels him to acknowledge the omnipotence of the
sign of the cross and defies him by making it on his own
person. He abjures Magic, becomes a Christian, is conse-
crated bishop and meets with Justina in a convent. They
love now with the pure and lasting love of heavenly
charity ; persecution befalls both ; they are arrested to-
gether, put to death on the same day and ratify in the
breast of God their mystical and eternal marriage.^
^ In the Golden Legend \.ht. story is entitled "Of St. Justina," whose
festival is on September 26. St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, is entirely
distinct from the Cyprian of legend.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
According to the legend, St. Cyprian was Bishop of
Antioch, but ecclesiastical history says that his seat was
that of Carthage. It matters little, for the rest, whether
the personalities are the same ; the one belongs to poetry,
while the other is a father and martyr of the Church.
There is extant among the old Grimoires a prayer
attributed to the St. Cyprian of legend, who is possibly
the holy Bishop of Carthage : its obscure and figurative
expressions may have given credit to the idea that prior
to his conversion he was addicted to the deadly practices
of Black Magic. It may be rendered thus.
*' I, Cyprian, servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, have
prayed unto God the Father Almighty, saying : Thou
art the strong God, my God omnipotent, dwelling in
the great light. Thou art holy and worthy of praise,
and Thou hast beheld in the old days the malice of
Thy servant and the iniquities into which I was plunged
by the wiles of the demon. I was ignorant of Thy
true name ; I passed in the midst of the sheep and they
were without a shepherd. The clouds shed no dew on
earth ; trees bare no fruit and women in labour could
not be delivered. I bound and did not loose; I bound
the fishes of the sea, and they were captive ; I bound
the pathways of the sea, and many evils did I encompass.
But now, Lord Jesus Christ, 1 have known Thy Holy
Name, I have loved Thee, I am converted with my
whole heart, my whole soul and all my inward being. I
have turned from the multitude of my sins, that I may
walk in Thy love and follow Thy commandments, which
are henceforth my faith and my prayer. Thou art the
Word of truth, the sole Word of the Father, and I
conjure Thee now to break the chain of clouds and send
down on Thy children Thy goodly rain like milk, to
set free the rivers and liberate those who swim, as also
those which fly. I conjure Thee to break all the chains
and remove all the obstacles by the virtue of Thy Holy
Name.**
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The History of Magic
The antiquity of this prayer is evident and it embodies
most remarkable reminiscences of primitive types belonging
to Christian esotericism during the first centuries of this era.
The qualification of Golden given to the fabulous legend
of allegorical saints is a sufficient indication of its character.
Gold, in the eyes of initiates, is condensed light ; the sacred
numbers of the Kabalah were called golden ; the moral
instructions of Pythagoras were contained in Golden Verses ;
and for the same reason that mysterious work of Apu-
leius in which an ass has an important role^ is called the
Golden Ass,
The Christians were accused by Pagans of worshipping
an ass, and the slander in question is not of their own
devising ; it is referable to the Jews of Samaria, who
expressed Kabalistic ideas on the Divinity by means of
Egyptian symbols. Intelligence was represented in the
symbol of a magical star, venerated under the name of
Rempham ; science was depicted by the emblem of Anubis^
the latter name being altered into Nibbas; whilst vulgar
faith or credulity appeared in the likeness of Thartac^ a
god represented holding a book, wearing a mantle and
having the head of an ass.^ According to the Samaritan
doctors, Christianity was the reign of Thartac^ or blind
faith and vulgar credulity set up as an universal oracle,
superior to understanding and knowledge. This is why,
in their intercourse with Gentiles and when they heard
themselves identified by these with Christians, they pro-
tested and begged not to be confounded with the worship-
pers of an ass's head. The pretended revelation diverted
the philosophers, and Tertullian mentions a Roman carica-
ture, extant in his days, which exhibited Thartac in all his
glory, identified as the god of Christianity, much to the
amusement of Tertullian, though he was the author of
that famous aphorism : Credo quia ahsurdum}
^ This pictorial sign appears in an old Grimoire.
* With this reverie of Eliphas L^vi on the subject of the mystic ass
let us compare another which is of an entirely different order, though it
204
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
The Golden Ass of Apuleius is the occult legend of
Thartac, It is a magical epic and a satire against Chris-
tianity, which the author had doubtless professed for a
period, or so at least he appears to intimate under the
allegory of his metamorphosis into an ass. The story
of the work is as follows. Apuleius was travelling in
Thessaly, the country of enchantments. He received
hospitality at the house of a man whose wife was a
sorceress, and he seduced the servant of his hostess, think-
ing to obtain in this manner the secrets of her mistress.
The maid promised to deliver to her lover a concoction
by means of which the sorceress changed herself into a
bird, but she made a mistake in the box and Apuleius
was transformed into an ass. She could only console
him by saying that to regain his proper form it would be
sufficient to eat roses, the rose being the flower of initia-
tion. The difficulty at the moment being to find roses
in the night, it was decided to wait till the morrow and
the servant therefore stabled the ass, but only for it to
be taken by robbers and carried off. There was little
chance now of coming across roses, which are not intended
for asses, and gardeners chased away the animal with
sticks.
During his long and sad captivity, he heard the his-
tory of Psyche related, that marvellous and symbolical
legend which was like the soul and poetry of his own
experience. Psyche desired to take by surprise the secrets
belongs to the same category, (i) It is recorded by Josephus that a
certain Jew named Onias obtained leave from Ptolemy Philometor to
build a temple in honour of God at a certain place in Arabia which was
subsequently called Onium, after the founder. (2) This Onium was not
Heliopolis, as supposed commonly. (3) The Temple at Onium, on
account of a similitude of sound, was connected with the Greek word
01/05, signifying Ass. (4) The Greeks in consequence believed themselves
to have discovered the secret object of Jewish worship, being the animal
in question. (5) It was asserted that there was an ass's head in the
vestibule of every Jewish temple. (6) As the Greeks did not closely dis-
tinguish between Jews and Christians, the ass came also to be called
the god of the Christians. — Jacob Bryant : Analysis of A ntient Mythology,
3rd edition, vol. vi. pp. 82 et seq.
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The History of Magic
of love, as Apuleius sought those of Magic ; she lost
love and he the human form. She was an exiled wan-
derer, living under the wrath of Venus, and he was the
slave of thieves. But after having journeyed through
hell, Psyche was to return into heaven, and the gods took
pity on Lucius. Isis appeared to him in a dream and
promised that her priest, warned by a revelation, would
give him roses during the solemnities of her coming
festival. That festival arrived, and Apuleius describes
at great length the procession of Isis ; the account is
valuable to science, for it gives the key of Egyptian
mysteries. Men in disguise come first, carrying grotesque
animals ; these are the vulgar fables. Women follow
strewing flowers and bearing on their shoulders mirrors
which reflect the image of the great divinity. So do
men go in front and formulate dogmas which women
embellish, reflecting unconsciously the higher truths,
owing to their maternal instincts. Men and women
came afterwards in company as light-bearers ; they repre-
sented the alliance of the two terms, the active and
passive generators of science and life.^ After the light
came harmony, represented by young musicians, and, in
fine, the images of gods, to the number of three, followed
by the grand hierophant, carrying, instead of an image,
the symbol of great Isis, being a globe of gold surmounted
by a Caduceus. Lucius Apuleius beheld a crown of
roses in the hands of the high priest ; he approached and
was not repulsed ; he ate the roses and was restored to
human shape.
All this is learnedly written and intermingled with
episodes which are now heroic and again grotesque in
^ The commentary of the Zokar on Genesis ii. 22, says that the words
— " which the Lord God had taken from man " — signify that the Tradition
has issued from the Written Doctrine. The words " and brought him to
man " indicate that the Traditional Law must not remain isolated : it
can only exist in union with the Written Law. Part I, Fol. 48^ It follows,
and is made plain elsewhere, that man is the Written Law and woman
the Secret Doctrine.
206
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
character, as befitted the double nature of Lucius and
the ass. Apuleius was at once the Rabelais and Sweden-
borg of the old world at the close of the epoch.
The great masters of Christianity either failed or
refused to understand the mysticism of the Golden Ass.
St. Augustine in the City of God asks in the most serious
manner whether one is to believe that Apuleius was
metamorphosed literally into an ass and seems disposed
to admit the possibility, but only as an exceptional pheno-
menon— from which nothing follows as a consequence.
If this be an irony on his part, it must be allowed that it
is cruel, but if it be ingenuousness — however, St. Agus-
tine, the acute rhetorician of Madaura, was scarcely given
to being ingenuous.
Blind and unfortunate indeed were those initiates of
the Antique Mysteries who ridiculed the ass of Bethlehem
without perceiving the infant God Who shone upon the
peaceful animals in the stable — the Child on whose forehead
reposed the conciliating star of all the past and future.
Whilst philosophy, convicted of impotence, offered insult
to victorious Christianity, the fathers of the Church
assumed all the magnificence of Plato and created a new
philosophy based upon the living reality of the Divine
Word, ever present in His Church, reborn in each of
its members and immortal in humanity. It would be a
greater dream of pride than that of Prometheus, were it
not at the same time a doctrine which is all abnegation
and all devotion, human because it is divine and divine
because it is human.
207
CHAPTER VI
SOME KABALISTIC PAINTINGS AND SACRED
EMBLEMS
In obedience to the Saviour's formal precept, the primi-
tive Church did not expose its Most Holy Mysteries to
the chance of profanation by the crowd. Admission to
Baptism and the Eucharist was in virtue of progressive
initiations ; the sacred books were also held in conceal-
ment, their free study and, above all, interpretation being
reserved to the priesthood. Moreover, images were
fewer and less explicit in character. The feeling of the
time refrained from reproducing the figure of Christ
Himself, and the paintings on the catacombs were, for
the most part, Kabalistic emblems. There was the
Edenic Cross with the four rivers, where harts came to
drink ; the mysterious fish of Jonah was replaced fre-
quently by a two-headed serpent; a man rising from a
chest recalls pictures of Osiris.^ All these allegories at a
later period fell under proscription, owing to the Gnos-
ticism which misapplied them, materialising and debasing
the holy traditions of the Kabalah.
The name of Gnostic was not always rejected by the
Church. Those fathers whose doctrine was allied to the
traditions of St. John frequently made use of this title
to designate the perfect Christian. Apart from the great
Synesius, who was a finished Kabalist but of questionable
orthodoxy, St. Irenaeus and St. Clement of Alexandria
applied it in this sense. The false Gnostics were all in
revolt against the hierarchic order, seeking to level the
* In one of the pictorial symbols of Alchemy the head of the winged
solar man is represented rising from a chest. It is a recurring image.
208
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magi a
sacred science by its general diffusion, to substitute visions
for understanding, personal fanaticism for hierarchic
religion, and especially the mystical licence of sensual
passions for that wise Christian sobriety and obedience to
law which are the mother of chaste marriages and saving
temperance.
The induction of ecstasy by physical means and the
substitution of somnambulism for sanctity— these were
the invariable tendency of those Cainite sects which per-
petuated the Black Magic of India. The Church could
do no less than condemn them energetically, and it did
not swerve from its mission ; it is only regrettable that
the good grain of science often suffered when the spade
was driven and the flame kindled in fields overgrown by
tares.
Enemies of generation and the family, the false
Gnostics sought to insure sterility by increasing debauch ;
their pretence was to spiritualise matter, but actually they
materialised spirit, and this in the most repulsive manner.
Their theology abounds in the copulation of Eons and in
voluptuous embraces.^ Like the Brahmans, they wor-
shipped death under the symbol of the lingam; their
creation was an infinite onanism and their redemption an
eternal abortion.
Looking to escape from the hierarchy by the help of
miracle — as if miracle apart from the hierarchy proved
anything but disorder or rascality, the Gnostics, from the
days of Simon Magus, were great workers of prodigies.
Substituting the impure rites of Black Magic for the
established worship, they caused blood to appear instead
of the Eucharistic wine and substituted cannibal com-
munions for the peaceful and pure supper of the Heavenly
* It is obvious that ^liphas L6vi pictures only the dark side of
Gnosticism ; he says nothing and perhaps knew nothing of the higher
aspects. His stricture on the copulation of Eons reads strangely for
a defender of KabaJism, seeing that the Zohar abounds in similar
images.
209 O
The History of Magic
Lamb.^ The arch-heretic Marcos, a disciple of Valentinus,
said Mass with two chalices ; he poured wine into the
smaller and on pronouncing a magical formula the larger
vessel was filled with a liquor like blood, which swelled
up seething. He was not a priest, and he sought to
prove in this manner that God had invested him by a
miraculous ordination.^ He incited all his disciples to
perform the same marvel in his presence. It was women
more especially whose success was parallel to his own,
but when they passed subsequently into convulsions and
ravishment, Marcos breathed upon them, communicating
his own mania, so that they covenanted to forget for his
sake, and for that of religion, not only all prudence but
all decency.
Such intervention of woman in the priesthood was
always the dream of false Gnostics, for in so equalising
the sexes they introduced anarchy into the family and
raised a stumbling-block in the path of society. Maternity
is the true priesthood of women ; modesty is the ritual
of the fireside and the religion thereto belonging. This
the Gnostics failed to understand, or they understood it
too well rather, and in misguiding the sacred instincts
of the mother they cast down the barrier which stood
between them and complete liberty for their desires.^
^ This statement^requires to be checked by a French authority of the
period, with whom Eliphas L^vi could not fail to be acquainted. I refer
to Jacques Matter and his Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme, a second and
enlarged edition of which was published in 1843. According to the
testimony of this writer : {a) Some Gnostics rejected the Eucharist en-
tirely ; {h) Those who preserved it never taught the real communication
of man in the flesh and blood of the Saviour ; {c) for them it was an
emblem of their mystic union with a being belonging to the Pleroma ;
{d) The wonder-working Eucharist was particular to Marcos, but accord-
ing to St. Irenaeus it was the result of trickery ; {e) He filled chalices
with wine and water, pronounced over them a formula of his own, and
caused these liquids to appear purple and ruby in colour. Op. cit.^ vol.
ii, pp. 344-346.
^ This assertion is merely a matter of inference.
^ The materials here embodied come direct from Matter, and the last
sentence is almost in his own words. The earlier writer says that he
caused women to bless the chalice. Nothing is said as to the interven-
tion of men, other than Marcos, in the celebration.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
The sorry candour of lewdness was not, however, a
gift possessed by all. On the contrary, the Montanists,
among other Gnostics, exaggerated morality in order to
make it impracticable. Montanus himself, whose acrid
doctrines inveigled the paradoxical and extremist genius
of Tertullian, was given over, with Priscilla and Maxi-
milla, his prophetesses, or — as we should now say — his
somnambulists, to all the boundless licentiousness of frenzy
and ecstasy. The natural penalty of such excesses was not
wanting to their authors ; they ended in raving madness
and suicide.
The doctrine of the Marcosians was a profound and
materialised Kabalah ; they dreamed that God had created
everything by means of the letters of the alphabet ; that
these letters were as so many divine enianations, having
the power of generating beings; that words were all-
powerful and worked wonders virtually, as also in literal
reality.^ All this is true in a certain sense, but not in
that of the Marcosian heresy. The heretics in question
supplemented actualities by hallucinations and believed
that they went invisible because they were transported
mentally where they wished in the somnambulistic state.
In the case of false mystics, life and dream are frequently
so confused together that the predominant dream-state
invades and submerges reality : it is then uttermost rule
of folly. The natural function of imagination is to
evoke images and forms, but in a condition of abnormal
exaltation it can also exteriorise forms, as proved by
^ The dream ascribed to Marcos and his followers is that, however,
of the Zohar^ the opening section of which describes the letters of the
Hebrew alphabet as coming before God in succession, praying to be used
in the work of creation which was about to begin. They were set aside
in their turn for the reason applying to each, with the exception of Beth^
which was taken as the basis of the work, while Aleph was installed as
the first of all the letters, the Master of the Universe affirming that His
own Divine Unity was in virtue of this letter. The meaning was that
Aleph corresponds to the No. i. This, says the Zohary with ingenuous
subtlety, is why the two first words of Scripture have Beth as their initial
and the two next words have Aleph. — Zohar^ Part I, Fols. 2b-3b
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The History of Magic
the phenomena of monstious pregnancies and a host of
analogous facts which official science would do more
wisely to study rather than deny stubbornly. Of such
are the disorderly creations which religion brands justly
under the name of diabolical miracles and of such were
those of Simon, the Menandrians and Marcos.
In our own days a false Gnostic named Vintras, at
present a refugee in London, causes blood to appear in
empty chalices and on sacrilegious hosts. The unhappy
being then passes into ecstasies, after the manner of
Marcos, prophesies the downfall of the hierarchy and the
coming triumph of a pretended priesthood, given up to
unrestricted intercourse and unbridled love.^
After the protean pantheism of the Gnostics came
the dualism of Marcos, formulating as religious dogma
the false initiation prevalent among the pseudo-Magi of
Persia. The personification of evil produced a God in
competition with God Himself, a King of darkness as well
as a King of Light, and there is referable to this period
that pernicious doctrine of the ubiquity and sovereignty
of Satan against which we register our most energetic
protest. We make no pretence in this place of denying
or affirming the tradition concerning the fall of angels,
deferring herein, as in all that concerns faith, to the
supreme and infallible decisions of the Holy, Catholic,
Apostolic and Roman Church. But assuming that the
fallen angels had a leader prior to that apostasy, the event
in question could not do otherwise than precipitate them
into total anarchy, tempered only by the inflexible justice
of God. Separated from that Divinity which is the source
of all power, and more guilty by far than the others, the
prince of angels in rebellion could be nothing but the last
and most impotent of all outcasts.
^ It will be seen in a later section that this charge against Vintras
rests upon the evidence of persons expelled from the sect which he
founded, and, so far as I am aware, it has not been put forward
seriously.
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Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
But if there be a force in Nature which attracts those
who forget God towards sin and death, such force is no
other than the Astral Light, and we do not decline to
recognise it as an instrument in subservience to fallen
spirits. We shall recur to this subject, prepared with a
complete explanation, so that it may be intelligible in all
its bearings and all its orthodoxy.^ The revelation of a
great secret of occultism thus effected will make evident
the danger of evocations, all curious experiences, abuses
of magnetism, table-turning and whatever connects with
wonders and hallucinations.
Arius had prepared the way for Manicheanism by his
hybrid creation of a Son of God distinct from God Him-
self. It was equivalent to the hypothesis of dualism in
Deity, inequality in the Absolute, inferiority in Supreme
Power, the possibility of conflict between the Father and
the Son, and even its necessity. These considerations,
and the disparity between the terms of the divine syllogism,
make inevitable the rejection of the notion. Is there any
question whether the Divine Word can be good or evil —
can be either God or the devil P But this was the great
dilemma involved by the addition of a diphthong to the
Greek word o/uLouaiog^ by which it was changed to ojULocovanoi.
In declaring the Son consubstantial with the Father, the
Council of Nicaea saved the world, though the truth can
be realised only by those who know that principles in
reality constitute the equilibrium of the universe.
Gnosticism, Arianism, Manicheanism came out of the
Kabalah misconstrt^ed. The Church was therefore right
in forbidding to its faithful the study of a science so
dangerous ; the keys thereof should be reserved solely
to the supreme priesthood. The secret tradition would
appear as a fact to have been preserved by sovereign
^ The question, however, stood over until the appearance of La Clej
des Grands Mysteres, a considerable part 6f which is embodied in the
digest of Levi's writings which I published long since as The Mysteries
of Magic. The Astral Light is explained as " magnetised electricity " —
as already quoted.
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pontiffs, at least till the papacy of Leo III, to whom is
attributed an occult ritual said to have been presented by
him to the Emperor Charlemagne. It contains the most
secret characters of the Keys of Solomon. This little
work, which should have been kept in concealment, came
into circulation later on, necessitating its condemnation
by the Church, and it has passed consequently into the
domain of Black Magic. It is known under the name of
the Enchiridion of Leo III and we are in possession of
an old copy which is exceedingly rare and curious.^
The loss of the Kabalistic keys could not entail that
of the infallibility of the Church, which is ever assisted
by the Holy Spirit, but it led to great obscurity in
exegesis, the sublime imagery of Ezekiel's prophecy and
the Apocalypse of St. John being rendered completely
unintelligible. May the lawful successors of St. Peter
accept the homage of this book and bless the labours of
their humblest child, who, believing that he has found
one of the keys of knowledge, comes to lay it at the
feet of those who alone have the right to open and to
shut the treasures of understanding and of faith.
^ In my Book of Ceremonial Magic I have given full opportunities for
the judgment of this so-called occult ritual, which should certainly have
been kept in concealment, or better still allowed to perish, not on
account of its secrets but because it is in all respects worthless, and its
ascription to Leo II I an insult to that pontiff.
214
CHAPTER VII
PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL
On the eve of its extinction the school of Plato diffused
a great light at Alexandria ; but, victorious after three
centuries of warfare, Christianity had assimilated all that
was permanent and true in the doctrines of antiquity.
The last adversaries of the new religion attempted to
check the progress of men who were alive by galvanising
mummies. The time had come when the competition
could be taken seriously no longer, and the pagans of
the school of Alexandria, unwillingly and unconsciously,
were at work on the sacred monument raised by the
disciples of. Jesus of Nazareth to confront all the ages.
Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus are great
names in the annals of science and* virtue ; their theology
was elevated, their doctrine moral, their own manners
were austere. But the chief and most touching figure of
this epoch, the brightest star in the whole constellation,
was Hypatia, the daughter of Theon — that virginal and
learned girl whose understanding and virtues would have
taken her to the baptismal font, but she died a martyr
for liberty of conscience when they attempted to drag her
thereto. Synesius of Cyrene was trained at the school
of Hypatia ; he became Bishop of Ptolemais, and was
one of the most instructed philosophers as well as the
best Christian poet of the early centuries. It was he
who remarked that the common people always despised
things which are of easy understanding and that what
they require is imposture. When it was proposed to
confer on him episcopal dignity, he wrote thus in a letter
to a friend : ** The mind which is drawn to wisdom and
215
The History of Magic
to the contemplation of truth at fir^t hand is forced to
disguise it, so that it may be rendered acceptable to the
multitude. There is a real analogy between light and
truth, as between our eyes and ordinary understandings.
The sudden communication of a light too brilliant dazzles
the material eye, and rays that are moderated by shadow
are more serviceable to those whose sight as yet is feeble.
So, in my opinion, fictions are necessary for the people,
truth being harmful to those who are not strong enough
to contemplate it in all its splendour. If therefore the
ecclesiastical laws permit reserve in judgment, and alle-
gory in mode of expression, I can accept the dignity
which is oiTered me ; the condition is, in other words,
that I shall remain a philosopher at home, though I shall
tell apologues and parables in public. What can there
be in common, as a fact, between the vulgar crowd and
sublime wisdom } Truth must be kept in secret ; the
multitude need instruction proportioned to their imper-
fect reason.''
It is regrettable that Synesius should write in this
strain, as nothing can be more impolitic than to let a
reservation appear when one is entrusted with public
teaching. As the result of similar indiscretions, there is
the common remark of to-day that religion is necessary
for the people ; the question is for what people, seeing
that no one will tolerate inclusion in this category when
understanding and morality are involved.
The most remarkable work of Synesius is a treatise
on dreams, in which he unfolds the purest Kabalistic
doctrines and appears as a theosophist whose exaltation
and obscure style have rendered suspect of heresy ; but
he had neither the obstinacy nor the fanaticism of sec-
tarians. He died as he had lived in the peace of the
Church, confessing his doubts frankly but submitting
to hierarchic authority : his clergy and his flock asked
nothing better at his hands. According to Synesius, the
state of dream proves the individuality and immaterial
216
Divi?te Sy7tt bests and Realisation of Magta
nature of the soul, which in this condition creates for
itself a heaven, a country, palaces shining with light, or
otherwise darksome caverns — according to its inclinations
and desires. Moral progress may be estimated by the
tendency of dreams, for in these free will is suspended,
while fancy is abandoned entirely to the dominant instincts.
Images are produced in consequence as a reflection or
shadow of thought ; presentiments take bodily shape ;
memories are intermingled with hopes. The book of
dreams is inscribed sometimes with radiant and some-
times with dark characters, but accurate rules can be
established by which they may be decoded and read.
Jerome Cardan wrote a long commentary on the treatise
of Synesius and may even be said to have completed it
by a dictionary of all dreams, having their explanation
attached. The whole is to be distinguished entirely from
the little books of colportage, and it really claims a
serious place in the library of occult science.^
A certain section of criticism has ascribed to Synesius
those remarkable works which appear under the name
of Dionysius the Areopagite ; in any case, these are re-
garded as apocryphal and belonging to the brilliant period
of the school of Alexandria. They are monuments of
the conquest of higher Kabalism by Christianity, and they
are intelligible only for those who have been initiated
therein. The chief treatises of Dionysius are on Divine
Names and the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies.
The first explains and simplifies all mysteries of rabbinical
theology. According to the author, God is the infinite
^ It is laid down in the work of Synesius (a) that chastity and tem-
perance are indispensable for the knowledge of divination by dreams ;
(^) that these being granted, divination by dreams is both valuable and
simple ; (r) that all things past, present and future convey their images
to us ; {d) that there is no general rule of interpretation ; {e) that each
should make his divinatory science for himself, by noting his dreams.
The philosopher gives some account of the profit which he had derived
personally from a study of the images of sleep. Divination also pre-
served him from the ambushes laid by certain magicians, so that he
suffered no harm at their hands.
217
The History of Magic
and indefinable principle ; in Himself He is one and
inexpressible, but we ascribe to Him names which formu-
late our own aspirations towards His divine perfection.^
The sum of these names and their relation with numbers
constitute that which is highest in human thought;
theology is less the science of God than that of our
most sublime yearnings. The degrees of the spiritual
hierarchy are afterwards established on the primitive
scale of numbers, governed by the triad. The angelical
orders are three, and each order contains three choirs.
It is on this model that the hierarchy should be estab-
lished on earth, and the Church is its most perfect type :
therein are princes, bishops and lastly simple ministers.
Among the princes arc cardinal-bishops, cardinal-priests
and cardinal-deacons. Among prelates there are arch-
bishops, simple bishops and suffi-agans. Among ministers
there are rectors or vicars, simple priests and those who
hold the diaconate. The progression to this holy hier-
archy is by three preparatory degrees, being the sub-
diaconate, minor orders and clerkship. The functions
of all correspond to the angels and the saints ; they are
to glorify the threefold Divine Names, in each of the
Three Persons, because the Undivided Trinity is adored
in its fulness in each of the Divine Hypostases. This
transcendental theology was that of the primitive church,
and possibly it is attributed to St. Dionysius only in
virtue of a tradition which goes back to his and the
apostolic times, much as the rabbinical editors of the
^ Eliphas Levi's knowledge of the works attributed to Dionysius is
doubtless derived from the translation of Monsignor Darboy, Archbishop
of Paris, which appeared in 1845. There is an elaborate introduction
designed to establish the authenticity of the texts and this is excellent,
at least for its period, as a piece of special pleading. The reader who
refers to the treatise on Divine Names need not be distressed when
he finds that it embodies no mysteries of rabbinical theology. To many
of us at the present day the most important of the Djonysian writings
is that on Mystical Theology, which is omitted in the enumeration of
Levi and not perhaps unnaturally, as it is a pelagus divinitatis over
which he would not have ventured to sail.
218
Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia
Sepher Tetzirah attributed that text to the patriarch
Abraham, because it embodies the tradition perpetuated
from father to son in the family of this patriarch. How-
ever it may be, the books of St. Dionysius are precious
for science ; they consecrate the mystical marriage of
antique initiation with the gospel of Christianity, uniting
a perfect understanding of supreme philosophy with a
theology which is absolutely complete and in all things
above reproach.
219
BOOK IV
MAGIC AND CIVILISATION
BOOK IV
MAGIC AND CIVILISATION
n— DALETH
CHAPTER I
MAGIC AMONG BARBARIANS
Black Magic retreated before the light of Christianity,
Rome was conquered by the cross, and prodigies took
refuge in that dark, circle with which the barbarous pro-
vinces enringed the new Roman splendour. Among a
large number of extraordinary phenomena th^re is one
which was verified in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian.
At Tralles in Asia, a .young and noble girl named Phil-
innium, originally of Corinth and daughter of Demos-
trates and Charito, was captivated by Machates, a youth
of mean condition. Marriage was impossible, for, as it
has been said, Philinnium was noble, being, moreover, an
only daughter and a rich heiress. Machates was a man
of the people and kept a tavern. The passion of Phil-
innium was increased by difficulties ; she escaped from
her father's home and took refuge with Machates. An
illicit intercourse began and continued for six months,
when the girl was discovered by her parents, rescued by
them and sequestered carefully. Measures were now
projected for leaving the country and removing her to
Corinth ; but Philinnium, who had visibly wasted since
separation from her lover, was seized thereupon with a
languishing disorder, neither smiling nor sleeping, and
refusing all nourishment. It came to pass, in fine, that
223
The History of Magic
she died. The parents then relinquished their deter-
mination to depart and purchased a vault, where the
young girl was deposited, clothed in her richest garments.
The sepulchre was situated in an enclosure belonging to
the family and no one entered therein after the burial,
for pagans did not pray at the tombs of the departed.
The noble family were so anxious to avoid all scandal
that all the arrangements took place in secret, and
M achates had no idea as to what had become of his
mistress. But on the night following the entombment,
when he was about to retire, the door opened slowly and,
coming forward with lamp in hand, he beheld Philinnium
magnificently apparelled, but pallid, rold and fixing him
with a dreadful stare in the eyes Machates ran to meet
her, took her in his arms, asked a thousand questions
amidst as many caresses, and they passed the night
together. Before daybreak Philinnium rose up and dis-
appeared, while her lover was still plunged in profound
sleep.
Now the girl had an old nurse who loved her ten-
derly and wept bitterly at her loss. She may have been
an accomplice in her misconduct, and since the burial of
her beloved, being unable to sleep, she rose frequently at
night in a kind of delirium and wandered round the
dwelling of Machates. It came about in this manner
that a few days after the episode just narrated, she ob-
served a light in the young man's chamber; drawing
nearer and looking through the chinks of the door, she
recognised Philinnium seated beside her lover, looking
at him in silence and yielding to his embraces. In a
state of distraction the poor woman ran back to awaken
the mother and gave account of what she had seen. It
was regarded at first as the raving of a visionary, but in
the end, persuaded by her entreaties, the mother rose
and repaired to the house of Machates. All were asleep
therein and there was no answer to knocking. The
lady looked through the chinks of the door, the lamp
224
HERMETIC MAGIC
Facing p. 224
Magic and Civilisation
was extinguished, but a moonbeam lighted the chamber
and the mother saw on a chair the draperies of her
daughter and could distinguish two persons asleep in
the bed. She was seized with fright, returned home
trembling, not daring to visit the sepulchre of her child,
and passed the rest of the night in agitation and tears.
On the morrow she sought the lodging of Machates and
questioned him gently. The young man confessed that
Philinnium visited him every night. **Why refuse her
to me.?" he said to the mother. '* We are affianced
before the gods." Then opening a coffer he shewed
Charito the ring and girdle of her daughter, adding :
'* She gave me these last night, pledging me never to
belong to anyone but her ; seek therefore to separate
us no longer, since we are united by a mutual promise."
'* Will you therefore in your turn go to the grave
in search of her ? " said the mother. " Philinnium has
been dead for these four days, and it is doubtless a sorceress
or a stryge who has assumed her likeness to deceive you.
You are the spouse of death, your hair will whiten to-
morrow, and the day after you also will be buried. In
this manner do the gods avenge the hctfiour of an out-
raged family."
Machates turned white and trembled at this language ;
he began to fear on his own part that he was the sport
of infernal powers ; he begged Charito to bring her
husband that evening, when he would hide them near
his room, and at the time of the phantom's arrival, would
give a signal to warn them of the fact. They came, and
at the allotted hour came also Philinnium to Machates,
who was in bed, but fully clothed and only pretending
to sleep. The girl undressed and placed herself beside
him ; Machates gave the signal ; the parents entered with
torches and uttered a great cry on recognising their
daughter. Philinnium, with pallid face, rose from the
bed to her full height, and said in a hollow and terrible
voice : ** O my father and my mother, why have you
225 p
The History of Magic
been jealous of my happiness and why have you pursued
me even beyond the grave ? My love had compelled the
infernal gods ; the power of death was suspended ; three
days only and I should have been restored to life. But
your cruel curiosity makes void the miracle of Nature ;
you are killing me a second time."
After these words she fell back, an inert mass, upon
the bed ; her countenance faded ; a cadaverous odour
filled the chamber ; and there was nothing now but the
disfigured remains of a girl who had been five days dead.
On the morrow the whole town was in commotion over
this prodigy. People crowded to the amphitheatre,
where the history was recounted in public, and the crowd
then visited the mortuary vault of Philinnium. There
was no sign of her presence, but they came upon an iron
ring and a gilded cup, which she had received as presents
from Machates. The corpse was in the room of the
tavern, but the young man had vanished. The diviners
were consulted and they directed that the remains should
be interred without the precincts of the town. Sacrifices
were offered to the Furies and to the terrestrial Mercury ;
the celestial manes were coniured and there were offerings
to Jupiter Hospitalis.
Phlegon, a freedman of Adrian, who was the ocular
witness of these facts, and relates them in a private letter,
adds that he had to exercise his authority to calm a place
disturbed by so extraordinary an event, and he finishes
his story with the following words : *' If you think fit to
i;iform the emperor, let me know, that I may send some
of those who have been witnesses of these things.'* The
history of Philinnium is therefore well authenticated. A
great German poet ^ has made it the subject of a ballad
which everyone knows under the title of the Bride of
Corinth, He supposes that the girl's parents were Chris-
tians, and this gives him the opportunity to make a
powerful pgetic contrast between human passions and
* Goethe.
226
Magic and Civilisation
the duties of religion. The mediaeval de monographers
have not failed to explain the resurrection, or possibly
the apparent death of the young Greek lady, as a dia-
bolical obsession. On our own part, we recognise an
hysterical coma accompanied by lucid somnambulism ;
the father and mother of Philinnium killed her by their
rough awakening and public imagination exaggerated all
the circumstances of this history.^
The terrestrial Mercury, to whom sacrifices were
ordained by diviners, is no other than the Astral Light
personified. It is the fluidic genius of the earth, fatal
for those who arouse it without knowing how to direct ;
it is the focus of physical life and the magnetised re-
ceptacle of death. This blind force, which the power of
Christianity enchained and cast into the abyss, meaning
into the centre of the earth, made its last efforts and
manifested its final convulsions by monstrous births
among barbarians. There is scarcely a district in which
the preachers of the gospel did not have to contend with
animals in hideous forms, being incarnations of idolatry
in its death-throes. The vouivres^ graouillis^ g^^g^y^^^y
tarasques are not allegorical only ; it is certain that moral
* This explanation is not in accordance with the recorded facts for
which Phlegon and Proclus are the authorities. The works of Phlegon
were pubHshed at Leyden in 1620, under the editorship of Meursius
and again in 1775 at Halle, by Franzius ; they contain the story of
Philinnion — as the name is spelt by Phlegon. Machates was a foreign
friend of Demostratus from Pella, net an innkeeper. Philinnion
appeared to him after her death in the house of his parents and
declared her love. Her intercourse with Machates was discovered acci-
dentally by a servant, and the denouement is much as it is given in the
present place. Philinnion said, however, that she acted with the con-
sent of the gods. Eliphas L6vi accounts for his discrepancies by an
appeal to the narratives of French demonographers, but he makes no
references by which we can check him. He states, however, that they
are answerable for the alleged fact that Machates was the keeper of a
tavern. The date of the actual occurrence is the reign of Philip II of
Macedon, and the "Emperor" referred to should be King Philip.
Levi confuses the date of Phlegon (Hadrian's reign) with the date of
the incident. Phlegon was merely a collector of curious stories, and
could not, of course, have witnessed an incident which took place 500
years before his birth !
227
The History of Magic
disorders produce physical deformities and do, to some
extent, realise the frightful forms attributed by tradition
to demons. The question arises whether these fossil
remains from which Cuvier built up his mammoth mon-
sters belong really in all cases to epochs preceding our
creation. Is also that great dragon merely an allegory
which Regulus is represented as attacking with machines
of war and which according to Livy and Pliny lived on
the borders of the river Bagrada ? His skin, which mea-
sured 1 20 feet, was sent to Rome and was there preserved
until the period of the war with Numantia. There was
an ancient tradition that when the gods were angered by
extraordinary crimes, they sent monsters upon earth,
and this tradition is too universal not to be founded
upon actual facts ; it follows that the stories concerning
it belong more frequently to history than mythology.
In all memorials of barbarian races, at that epoch
when Christianity conquered them with a view to their
civilisation, we find (a) the last traces of high magical
initiation spread formerly throughout the world, and (b)
proofs of the degeneration which had befallen such
primitive revelation, together with the idolatrous vileness
into which the symbolism of the old world had lapsed.
In place of the disciples of the Magi, diviners, sorcerers
and enchanters reigned everywhere ; God was forgotten
in the deification of men. The example was given by
Rome to its various provinces, and the apotheosis of the
Cassars familiarised the whole world with the religion of
sanguinary deities. Under the name of Irminsul, the
Germans worshipped and sacrificed human victims to that
Arminius or Hermann who caused Augustus to mourn
the lost legions of Varus. The Gauls referred to Brennus
the attributes of Taranis and of Teutas, burning in his
honour colossi built of rushes and filled with Romans.
Materialism reigned everywhere, idolatry being synony-
mous therewith, as is also the superstition which is ever
cruel because it is always base.
228
Magic and Civilisation
Providence, which predestined Gaul to become the
most Christian land of France, caused, however, the light
of eternal truths to shine forth therein. The original
Druids were true children of the Magi, their initiation
deriving from Egypt and Chaldea, or in other words,
from the purest sources of primitive Kabalah.^ They
adored the Trinity under the names of Isis or Ilesus,
being supreme harmony ; Belen or Bel, meaning the
Lord in Assyrian and having correspondence with the
name Adonai ; Camul or Camael, a name which personifies
divine justice in the Kabalah.'^ Beneath this triangle of
light they postulated a divine reflection, also consisting
of three personified emanations, being: Teutas orTeuth,
identical with the Thoth of the Egyptians, and the Word
or formulated Intelligence ; then Strength and Beauty,
the names of which varied like the emblems. Finally
they completed the sacred septenary by a mysterious
image representing the progress of dogma and its develop-
ments to come. The form was that of a young girl,
veiled and bearing an infant in her arms; they dedicated
this symbol to the virgin who shall bear a child.*
The ancient Druids lived in strict abstinence, pre-
served the deepest secrecy concerning their mysteries,
studied the natural sciences, and only admitted new
adepts after prolonged initiations. There was a cele-
* It will be understood at the present day that this is rcrtrie and only
serves to remind us that Aristotle ascribed the philosophy of Greece
to a source in Gaul, while it is affirmed by Clement of Alexandria that
Pythagoras derived therefrom. It is thought now, on the other hand,
that Druidism in its later developments may have been influenced not
only by Greek but also by Phcenician ideas.
* In Druidic mythology, Belen, otherwise Heol, was the sun-god ;
Camael was god of war. The highest divinity is believed to have been
that Esus who is mentioned by Lucan. He is represented by the circle,
as a sign of infinity, and all fate was beneath him. The most important
goddess was Keridwen, who presided over wisdom. The conclusion of
Levi's enumeration is like the beginning — a dream.
' A note by Eliphas Ldvi says that a Druidic statue was found at
Chartres, having the inscription : ViRGlNl PARlTURiE. It is curi'^us
that Druidic inscriptions should be in the Latin tongue.
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The History of Magic
brated Druidic college at Autun, and, according to Saint-
Foix, its armorial bearings still exist in that town. They
are azure, with serpents argent couchant, surmounted
by mistletoe, garnished with acorns vert, to distinguish
it from other mistletoe, it being the oak and not the
mistletoe which naturally bears the acorns. Mistletoe is
a parasitic plant which has fruit particular to itself.^
The Druids built no temples but worked the rites
of their religion on dolmens and in forests. The
mechanical means by which they raised such colossal
stones to form their altars is even now a matter of specu-
lation. These erections are still to be seen, dark and
mysterious, under the clouded sky of Armorica. The
old sanctuaries had secrets which have not come down
to us. The Druids taught that the souls of ancestors
watched over children; that they were made happy by
their glory and suffered in their shame ; that protecting
genii overshadowed trees and stones of the fatherland ;
that the warrior who died for his country expiated all his
offences, fulfilled his task with dignity, was elevated to
the rank of a genius and exercised henceforth the power
of the gods. It followed that for the Gauls patriotism
itself was a religion ; women and even children carried
arms, if necessary, to withstand invasion. Joan of Arc
and Jeanne Hachette of Beauvais only carried on the
traditions of these noble daughters of the Gauls. It is
the magic of remembrances which cleaves to the soil of
the fatherland.
The Druids were priests and physicians, curing by
magnetism and charging amulets with their fluidic in-
fluence. Their universal remedies were mistletoe and
serpents* eggs, because these substances attract the Astral
' It was supposed to increase the species by preventing sterility, and
it was dignified by other ascribed virtues ; it was the ethereal tree and
the growth of the high summit. It was included among the ingredients
of the mystical cauldron of Keridwen, in which genius, inspiration and
serenity were said to dwell.
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Magic and Civilisation
Light in an especial manner/ The solemnity with which
mistletoe was cut drew down upon this plant the popular
confidence and rendered it powerfully magnetic. It came
about in this manner that it worked marvellous cures,
above all when it was fortified by the Druids with con-
jurations and charms. Let us not accuse our forefathers
of over great credulity herein ; it may be that they knew
that which is lost to us. The progress of magnetism
will some day reveal to us the absorbing properties of
mistletoe ; we shall then understand the secret of those
spongy growths which draw the unused virtue of plants
and become surcharged with tinctures and savours.
Mushrooms, truffles, gall on trees and the different kinds
of mistletoe will be employed with understanding by a
medical science which will be new because it is old. We
shall cease to ridicule Paracelsus, who collected moss
{usnea) from the skulls of hanged men ; but one must
not move quicker than science, which recedes that it may
advance the further.
^ The same occult importance attaches to this statement as to another
in the Dogme et Rituel^ where l^liphas L^vi, explaining the superstitions
of the past, affirms for those who can suffer it that the toad is not
poisonous but is a sponge for poisons. I suppose, however, it is obvious
that if *' popular confidence" can render mistletoe magnetic, popular
distrust may instil poison into toads.
231
CHAPTER II
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
In imposing upon woman the severe and tender duties
of motherhood Providence has entitled her to the pro-
tection and respect of man. Made subject by Nature
itself to the consequence of affections which are her life,
she leads her masters by the chains which love provides,
and the more fully that she is in conformity with the
laws which constitute and also defend her honour the
greater is her sway, and the deeper that respect which
belongs to her in the sanctuary of the family. To revolt
is for her to abdicate, and to tempt her by a pretended
emancipation is to recommend her divorce by condemn-
ing her beforehand to sterility and disdain. Christianity
alone has the power to emancipate woman by calling her
to virginity and the glory of sacrifice. Numa foresaw
this mystery when he instituted the vestals ; but the
Druids forestalled Christianity by giving ear to the in-
spirations of virgins and paying almost divine honours to
the priestesses of the island of Sayne.
In Gaul women did not prevail by their coquetry and
their vices, but they ruled by their counsels ; apart from
their concurrence, neither peace nor war were made ; the
interests of the hearth and family were thus pleaded by
mothers and the national pride shone in the light of
justice when it was tempered by the maternal love of
country.
Chateaubriand calumniated Velleda by representing
her as yielding to the love of Eudorus ; she lived and
died a virgin. When the Romans invaded Gaul, she
was already advanced in years and was a species of Pythia
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Magic and Civilisation
who prophesied amidst great solemnities and whose oracles
were preserved with veneration. She was clothed in a
long black vestment, having no sleeves ; her head was
covered by a white veil, which came down to her feet;
she wore a vervain crown, and a sickle was placed in her
girdle; her sceptre was in the form of a distafF; her
right foot was shod with a sandal and her left foot wore
a kind of chaussure a poulaine. At a later period the
statues of Velleda were taken for those of Bcrthe au
grand pied. The High Priestess bore, as a fact, the
insignia of the protecting divinity of the female Druids ;
she was Hertha, or Wertha, the youthful Gaulish Isis,
the Queen of Heaven, the virgin who must bring forth
a child. She was depicted with one foot on the earth
and the other on the water, because she was queen of
initiation and presided over universal science. The foot
set upon the water was usually supported by a ship,
analogous to the bark or conch of the ancient Isis. She
held the distafF of the Fates wound about with a thread,
part black, part white, because she presided over all
forms and symbols, and it was she who wove the vest-
ment of ideas. She was also given the allegorical form
of the syrens, half woman and half fish, or the torso
of a beautiful girl whose legs were serpents, signifying
the flux of things and the analogical alliance of opposites
in the manifestation of all occult forces of Nature.
Under this last form Hertha took the name of Melusine
or Melosina, the musician, the singer, that is to say, the
syren who reveals harmonies. Such is the origin of the
legends concerning Queen Bertha and the fairy Melusine.
The latter came, it is said, in the eleventh century to
a lord of Lusignan ; she was loved by him, and their
espousals topk place on the condition that he did not
seek to penetrate certain mysteries of her existence.
That promise was given, but jealousy begot curiosity
and led to perjury. He spied upon Melusine and
surprised her in one of her metamorphoses, for once
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The History of Magic
every week the fairy resumed her serpent legs. He
uttered a cry which was answered by one far more
despairing and terrible. Melusine disappeared but still
returns, making lamentation whenever a member of the
house of Lusignan is at the point of death J The legend
is imitated from the fable of Psyche and refers, like this,
to the dangers of sacrilegious initiations, or profanation
of the mysteries of religion and of love ; it is borrowed
from the traditions of the ancient bards and derives
evidently from the learned school of the Druids. The
eleventh century took possession of it and brought it into
prominence, but it existed from the far past.^
In France it would seem that inspiration was attri-
buted more especially to women ; elves ' and fairies
preceded saints, and the French saints have almost
invariably something of the fairy character in their
legend. St. Clothilde made us Christians and St.
Genevieve kept us French, repelling — by the force of
her virtue and her faith — the threatening invasion
of Attila. Joan of Arc is, however, rather of the fairy
family than the hierarchy of holy women ; she died like
Hypatia, the victim of marvellous natural gifts and the
martyr of her generous character. We shall speak of
her later on. St. Clothilde still performs miracles along
the countryside. At Andelys we have seen a crowd
of pilgrims thronging about a piscina in which the statue
* The floating traditions and (hansons concerning Melusine were
collected by Jean d' Arras into a beautiful romance of chivalry, at the
close of the fourteenth century.
• Whether this hypothesis of antiquity is warranted or not, the fact
that it is adopted should have prevented ^liphas L^vi from characterising
the romance of Melusine as an imitation pf the fable of Psyche : it is
obviously the reverse side. The allegory in the latter case is that of the
assumption of the soul by the Divine Spirit, so that all which is capable
of redemption in our human nature, its emotion, its desire and its love,
may enter into the glorious estate of the mystic marriage. The allegory
in the former case is that of the union instituted between the psychic
part and all that is of earth in our nature ; but this earth is not capable
of true marriage, and whereas the other experiment ends in the world of
unity, this terminates, as it can only, in that of separation.
Magic and Civilisation
of the saint is immersed annually, and according to
popular belief the first diseased person who goes down
into the water subsequently is cured at once. Clothilde
was a woman of action and a great queen, but she went
through many sorrows. Her elder son died after his
baptism, and the fatality was ascribed to witchcraft ;
the second fell ill and reached the point of death. The
fortitude of the saint did not yield, and Sicambre when
standing one day in need of more than human courage,
remembered the God of Clothilde. She became a widow
after converting and practically founding a great king-
dom, and she saw the two children of Clodomir
butchered practically under her eyes. In such sorrows
do queens on earth resemble the Queen of Heaven.^
After the great and brilliant figure of Clothilde,
history presents us with a hideous oflFset in the baleful
personality of Fredegonde, the woman whose glance was
witchcraft, the sorceress who slew princes. She accused
her rivals of Magic and condemned them to tortures
which she alone merited. Chilperic had one remaining
son by his first wife ; this young prince, who was named
Clovis, was attached to a daughter of the people whose
mother passed for a sorceress. Mother and daughter
were both accused of disturbing the reason of Clovis by
means of philtres and with murdering the two children
of Fredegonde by magical spells. The unhappy women
were arrested ; the daughter, Klodswinthe, was beaten
with rods, her beautiful hair cut ofi^, and this was hung
by Fredegonde on the door of the prince's chamber.
Subsequently Klodswinthe was brought up for sentence.
Her firm and simple answers astonished the judges, and
the chronicle says that it was proposed to submit her
to the test of boiling water. A consecrated ring was
placed in a tub set over a great fire and the accused,
clothed in white, after having confessed and communi-
cated, had to plunge her arm in the tub, in search of the
See Jules Garinet: Histoirc de la Magie en France^ 1818, pp. 11, 12.
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The History of Magic
ring. Her unchanged features made everyone cry out
that a miracle had taken place, but there was another
cry, which was one of reprobation and horror, when the
unhappy child drew forth her arm frightfully burnt.
She then asked permission to speak and said to her
judges and the people: ** You demanded a miracle from
God to establish my innocence. God is not to be
tempted, and He does not suspend the laws of Nature
in response to the caprice of men ; but He gives strength
to those who believe in Him, and for me has performed
a greater wonder than that which He refused to you.
This water has burned me, yet have I plunged my whole
arm into it and have brought forth the ring. I have
neither cried, whitened, nor quivered under this horrible
torture. Had I been a magician, as you say, I should
have resorted to witchcraft so that I might not be burnt ;
but I am a Christian and God has given me grace to
prove it by the constancy of martyrs." Such logic was
not of the kind that they understood at that barbarous
epoch ; Klodswinthe was sent back to prison, there to
await execution ; but God took pity upon her, and the
chronicle from which the account is drawn says that He
called her to Himself. If it be a legend only, it must
be allowed that it is beautiful and deserves to be kept
in memory.
Fredegonde lost one of her victims but not the other
two. The mother was put to the torture and, overcome
by her sufferings, she confessed whatever was required,
including the guilt of her daughter and the complicity
of Clovis. Armed with these admissions, Fredegonde
obtained the surrender of his son by the ferocious
Chilperic. The young prince was arrested and stabbed
in prison, Fredegonde declaring that he had escaped
from remorse by suicide. The corpse of the unhappy
Clovis was shewn to his father, with the dagger still in
the wound. Chilperic looked on coldly ; he was entirely
under the rule of Fredegonde, who dishonoured him
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Magic and Civilisation
with effrontery among the officers of the palace, taking
so little pains at concealment that the evidence was
before his eyes, almost despite himself. Instead of
slaying the queen and her accomplice, he departed on
a hunt in silence. He might have concluded to suffer
the outrage, through his fear of displeasing Fredegonde,
but the latter was ashamed on his account, and did him
the honour of believing in his wrath, that she might have
a pretext for his assassination. He had glutted her with
crimes and meanness: she killed him out of disgust.
Fredegonde, who destroyed on the pretext of sorcery
the women whose sole guilt was to have displeased her,
experimented herself in Black Magic and protected some
of those whom she thought were skilled therein. Ageric,
bishop of Verdun, had a pythoness arrested who made
a great deal of money by recovering stolen objects and
identifying the thieves; she was probably a somnam-
bulist. The woman was examined, but the demon
refused to go out of her as long as she was chained ; if
the pythoness were left in a church, unguarded and
unwatched, he agreed to leave her. They fell into the
trap ; it was the woman herself who went out, to take
refuge with Fredegonde, who hid her in the palace and
ended by saving her from being further exorcised, as
also probably from the stake. On this occasion there-
fore she did good without meaning it, yet it was rather
through her pleasure in evil.^
^ The story of Fredegonde and her connection with sorcery is told
by Gregory of Tours, but Eliphas Levi derived it from Jules Garinet,
already cited. The particulars concerning Klodswinthe appear to be
his own invention, of which her imputed discourse bears all the marks.
237
CHAPTER 111
THE SALIC LAWS AGAINST SORCERERS
Under the rule of the first French kings, the crime of
Magic did not entail death save for those of exalted posi-
tion, while there were some who were proud to die for
an offence by which they were raised above the vulgar
crowd and became formidable even in the sight of kings.
There was the general Mummol, for example, who, on
the rack by the orders of Fredegonde, declared that he ex-
perienced nothing, who provoked more frightful tortures
and died braving the executioners, while the latter were
moved to forgive him at the sight of such extra-natural
fortitude.^
Among the Salic laws, supposed to have been enacted
in 474, and attributed to Pharamond by Sigebert, the
following ordinances are found.
" If anyone shall testify that another has acted as a
heriburge or strioporte — titles applied to those who carry
the copper vessel to the spot where the vampires perform
their enchantments — and if he shall fail to convict him,
he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of 7,500 deniers,
being i8o| sous, ... If anyone shall charge a free
woman as a vampire or as a prostitute, and shall fail to
prove his words, he shall forfeit 2500 denier s^ being 62^
sous, ... If a vampire shall devour a man and be found
guilty, she shall forfeit 8000 deniers, being 200 sous.''
^ See Garinet, Histoire de la Magie en France^ pp. 14-16, and Th. de
Cauzons, La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France^ vol. ii. p. 100. The ori-
ginal authority is again Gregory of Tours : Histoire des Francs, Book VI,
c. 35. The account of Levi is rather incorrect, for after unheard-of tor-
tures, the life of Mummol was spared, but he died on the way to Bordeaux.
It does not appear that he defied his executioners and the renewed
torture was ordained by Chilp^ric.
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Magic and Civilisation
It will be seen that in those times cannibalism was
possible on terms and, moreover, that the market-price
of human flesh was not at a premium. It cost i8o| sous
to slander a man, but for a modicum above that sum he
could be killed and eaten, which was at once more honest
and thorough. This remarkable legislation recalls an
equally curious Talmudic recital, being one which was
interpreted after a memorable manner by the famous
Rabbi Jechiel in the presence of a certain queen who is
not named in the book.^ It was most likely Queen
Blanche, for Rabbi Jechiel lived in the reign of St. Louis.
He had been called upon to answer the objections of a
converted Jew named Douin, who had received at baptism
the Christian name of Nicholas. After various discus-
sions on texts of the Talmud, they came to the following
passage : "If anyone shall offer any blood of his chil-
dren to Moloch, let him die the death." The Talmud
annotates thus : " He therefore who shall offer not a
modicum of blood alone but the whole blood and the
whole flesh of his children, does not come under
the judgment of the law and no penalty is declared
against him." Those who took part in the debate
clamoured at a construction which passed all under-
standing : some laughed in pity, some quivered with
indignation. Rabbi Jechiel could scarcely obtain a
hearing, and when he succeeded at last, there was every
mark of disfavour, to indicate that he was condemned
beforehand.
" With us," said he, " the penalty of death is an
atonement and consequently a reconciliation, not an act
of vengeance. All who die by the law of Israel die in
the peace of Israel ; they partake of peace in death, and
they sleep with their fathers. No malediction descends
with them into the grave ; they abide in the immortality
of the House of Jacob. Death is therefore a crowning
* The work in question is called Acta Disputationis cum qtiodatn
Nicolai.
239
T'he History of Magic
grace ; it is the cure of a poisoned wound by the hot
iron. But we do not apply the iron to those who are
past cure ; we have no jurisdiction over those the extent
of whose transgression has cut them off for ever from
Israel. Such are as now dead, and it is not therefore for
us to shorten the term of their reprobation on earth :
they are delivered over to the wrath of God. Man is
warranted to wound only that he may heal, and we do
not apply remedies to those who are beyond recovery.
The father of a family punishes only his children and is
content to shut the door against strangers. Those great
criminals upon whom our law pronounces no sentence
are thereby excommunicated for ever, which is a penalty
greater than death."
The explanation of Rabbi Jechiel is admirable and
breathes all the patriarchal genius of ancient Israel.
Truly the Jews are our fathers in science, and if we — in
place of their persecution — had sought to understand
them, they would not have been at this day so far
alienated from our faith.
The above Talmudic tradition shews the Jewish anti-
quity of belief in the immortality of the soul.^ What is
this reintegration of the guilty in the family of Israel by
an expiatory death unless it be a protest against death
itself and a sublime act of faith in the perpetuity of life .?
Comte Joseph de Maistre understood this doctrine well
when he raised the executioner's sanguinary mission into
a kind of peculiar priesthood. The anguish of punish-
ment supplicates, said this great writer, and blood in its
outpouring still remains a sacrifice. Were capital punish-
ment other than a plenary absolution it would be nothing
but retaliation on murder ; the man who sufFers his sen-
* A story of the days of St. Louis is obviously not Talmudic and the
antiquity of the idea of immortality among the Jews fortunately rests on
a better foundation than this. The criticism exposes the carelessness of
Lt^vi if he is regarded as a man of learning. Some will think that he
traded on the ignorance of his readers.
240
Magic and Civilisation
tence fulfils all his penance and enters by death into the
immortal society of the children of God.
The Salic laws were those of a people still in the
state of barbarity, where everything is redeemed by a
ransom, as in time of war. Slavery still obtained and
human life had a debatable and relative value. That
must be always purchasable which there is a right to sell,
and only money is due for the destruction of an object
which has a price in money. The one efficacious legisla-
tion of the period was that of the Church, and its councils
took the most stringent measures against the vampires
and poisoners who went under the name of sorcerers.
The Council of Agde in Lower Languedoc, held in 506,
pronounced excommunication against them. The first
Council of Orleans, convened in 541, condemned divina-
tory operations; that of Narbonne, in 589, not only
visited sorcerers with the greater excommunication but
ordained that they should be sold as slaves for the benefit
of the poor. The same council decreed public whipping
for amatores diaholi ; meaning no doubt those who were
concerned about him, feared him, evoked him and attri-
buted to him power which was in any wise like that of
God.^ We offer our congratulations sincerely to the
disciples of M. le Comte de Mirville that they did not
live in such days.
While these events were passing in France an eastern
visionary was engaged in founding a religion which was
also an empire. Was Mahomet an impostor or was he
hallucinated ? For the Moslems he is still a prophet,
and for Arabic scholars the Koran will be always a master-
piece. An unlettered man, a simple camel-driver, he
created notwithstanding the most perfect literary monu-
ment of his country. His success might pass as miracu-
* What was actually intended by the expression amatores diaboli
should have been perfectly well understood by ^liphas L^vi. It corre-
sponds to the legends concerning incubi and succubi. For a specific
example see Brierre de Boismont, Des HallucinationSy p. 151 et seq.
241 Q
The History of Magic
lous, and the martial fervour of his successors threatened
for a moment the liberty of the whole world. But the
day came when Asia broke under the iron hand of Charles
Martel. That rough soldier tarried little for prayer
when there was fighting to be done ; when he wanted
money he looted monasteries and churches, and even sold
ecclesiastical benefices to his warriors. As the priesthood,
for these reasons, could not suppose that his arms were
blessed by God, his victories were ascribed to Magic.
Indeed, religious feeling was so stirred up against him
that St. Eucher, the venerable Bishop of Orleans, learned
in a vision from an angel that the saints whose churches
he had spoliated or profaned forbade him to enter into
heaven, and even disinterred his body, which they plunged
with his soul into the abyss. St. Eucher communicated
the revelation to Boniface, Bishop of Mayence, and to
Fulfvad, arch-chaplain of Pepin the Short. The tomb of
Charles Martel was opened, the body proved to be miss-
ing, the inner side of the stone was blackened as if by
burning, a foul smoke exhaled and a great serpent came
out. An authentic report of the opening was sent by
Boniface to Pepin the Short and Carloman, who were the
sons of Charles Martel, praying them to take warning by
the dreadful example and to respect holy things. Yet
there was little of that virtue on the part of those who
violated the grave of a hero on the faith of a dream, and
attributed a destruction which had been completely and
rapidly accomplished by death itself to the work of hell.^
Some extraordinary phenomena, occurring publicly in
France, characterised the reign of Pepin the Short. The
air seemed to be alive with human shapes; heaven re-
flected illusory scenes of palaces, gardens, tossing waves,
ships in full sail and hosts in battle array. The atmos-
phere was like a great dream, and the details of these
far^astic pageants were visible to everyone. Was it an
epidemic attacking the organs of vision or an aerial per-
^ The story comes from Gregory of Tours.
242
Magic and Civilisation
turbation projecting illusions on condensed air ? Was it
not more probably a general delusion occasioned by some
intoxicating and pestilential effluvium diffused throughout
the atmosphere ? The likelihood of the latter explanation
is increased by the fact that these visions provoked the
populace, who in their imagination beheld sorcerers in the
clouds scattering unv^holesome powders and poisons with
open hands. The country was smitten with sterility,
cattle died, and the mortality extended also to human
beings.
The occurrences offered an opportunity to circulate a
story, the success and credit of which was in proportion
to its extravagance. At that time the famous Kabalist
Zedekias ^ had a school of occult science, where he taught
not indeed the Kabalah but the entertaining speculations
arising therefrom and forming the exoteric part of a science
which has been ever hidden from the profane. With
mythology of this kind Zedekias diverted the minds of
his hearers. He told how Adam, the first man, originally
created in an almost spiritual estate, abode above our
atmosphere, in a light which gave birth at his pleasure to
the most wonderful vegetation. He was served by choirs
of beautiful beings, fashioned in the likeness of male and
female, of whom they were animated reflections, formed
from the purest substance of the elements. They were
sylphs, salamanders, undines and gnomes ; but in his
unfallen condition Adam reigned over the gnomes and
undines only by the agency of the salamanders and
sylphs, who alone had the power of ascending to his
aerial paradise.
There was nothing to equal the felicity of our first
parents amidst the ministry of the sylphs ; they were
perishable spirits, but they had incredible skill in building
and weaving the light, causing it to flower in a thousand
forms, more varied than the most brilliant and fruitful
^ The account of Zedekias and the atmospheric marvels is taken from
Garinet, pp. 34 et seq.
243
The History of Magic
imagination can now conceive. The earthly paradise — so
named because it reposed vpon the earthly atmosphere —
was therefore a domain of enchantments. Adam and Eve
slept in palaces of pearls and sapphires ; roses sprang up
around them and formed a carpet for their feet ; they
glided over waters in sea-shells drawn by swans ; birds
communed with them in delicious speech of music ;
flowers stooped to caress them. But all this was lost
by the fall, which cast our progenitors down on earth,
and the material bodies which clothed them henceforth
are those skins of beasts mentioned in the Bible. They
were alone and naked, where no one obeyed their caprice
of thought. They forgot their life in Eden, or viewed it
only as a dream seen through the glass of memory. But
the realms of paradise still and forever extend above the
earthly atmosphere, inhabited by sylphs and salamanders,
who are thus constituted guardians of man's domain, like
mournful retainers still in the house of a master whose
return they expect no more.
Imaginations were fired by these astonishing fictions
when the visions of the air began to be seen in the full
light of day. They signified unquestionably the descent
of sylphs and salamanders in search of their former
masters. Voyages to the land of sylphs were talked
of on all sides, as we talk at the present day of animated
tables and fluidic manifestations. The folly took pos-
session even of strong minds, and it was time for an inter-
vention on the part of the Church, which does not relish
the supernatural being hawked in the public streets, seeing
that such disclosures, by imperilling the respect due to
authority and to the hierarchic chain of instruction, can-
not be attributed to the spirit of order and light. The
cloud-phantoms were therefore arraigned and accused of
being hell-born illusions, while the people — anxious to
get something into their hands — began a crusade against
sorcerers. The public folly turned to a paroxysm of
mania ; strangers in country places were accused of de-
244
Magic ana Civilisation
scending from heaven and were killed without mercy ;
imbeciles confessed that they had been abducted by sylphs
or demons ; others who had boasted like this previously
either would not or could not unsay it ; they were burned
or drowned, and, according to Garinet, the number who
perished throughout the kingdom almost exceeds belief.^
It is the common catastrophe of dramas in which the first
parts are played by ignorance or fear.
Such visionary epidemics recurred in the reigns
following, and all the power of Charlemagne was put in
action to calm the public agitation. An edict, afterwards
renewed by Louis the Pious, forbade sylphs to manifest
under the heaviest penalties. It will be understood that
in the absence of the aerial beings the judgment fell upon
those who made a boast of having seen them, and hence
they ceased to be seen. The ships in air sailed back to
the port of oblivion, and no one claimed any longer to
have journeyed through the blue distance. Other popular
frenzies replaced the previous mania, while the romantic
splendours of the great reign of Charlemagne furnished
the makers of legends with new prodigies to believe and
new marvels to relate.
* See pp. 34-37 of his History. But the account in Garinet is derived
from the Cinqiiihne Entretien in the romance entitled Le Comte dc
Gabalis.
245
CHAPTER IV
LEGENDS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE
Charlemagne is the real prince of enchantments and
the world of faerie ; his reign is like a solemn and
brilliant pause between barbarism and the middle ages ;
while he himself is a grand and majestic apparition, re-
calling the magical pageant of Solomon's sway : he is
at once a resurrection and a prophecy. In him the
Roman empire, overleaping Frankish and Gaulish
origins, reappeared in all its splendour ; in him also,
as in a symbol, evoked and manifested by divination,
there is delineated beforehand the perfect empire of
the ages of mature civilisation, the empire crowned
by priesthood and establishing its throne beside the
altar.
The era of chivalry and the marvellous epos of
romances begin with Charlemagne ; the chronicles of
his period are like the Four Sons of Aymofi, or Oberon^
King of Faerie, Birds utter speech and direct the
French army when the path has been lost in the
forest ; brazen colossi appear in mid-ocean and indicate
to the emperor a free way eastward. Roland, first of
the paladins, wields a magic sword, baptized like any
Christian and bearing the name of Durandal ; the hero
addresses this sword, which seems to understand him,
and nothing can esist its supernatural onset. Roland
has also an ivory horn, contrived so skilfully that the
lightest breath w kens a response within it, and that
answer is heard for twenty leagues around, causing
even mountains to quiver. When the paladin falls at
Roncesvalles, overwhelmed rather than conquered, even
246
Magic and Civilisation
then he uprises like a giant beneath some avalanche of
trees and rolling rocks ; he winds his horn, and the
Saracens take refuge in flight. Charlemagne, at a
distance of more than ten leagues, hears the signal
and would speed to his aid, but he is prevented by the
traitor Ganelon, who has sold the French army to the
barbaric horde. Finding himself abandoned, Roland
for the last time embraces his Durandal, and then,
summoning all his strength, strikes it with both hands
against a mountain block, hoping to shatter the weapon,
lest it fall into the hands of infidels ; but the block itself
is cloven, the sword is not even indented. Hereat Roland
clasps it to his breast and yields up his spirit with so high
and proud a mien that the Saracens do not dare to ap-
proach, but, still shaking, direct a cloud of arrows against
their conqueror, who is no more. To be brief, Charle-
magne, bestowing a throne upon the papacy and receiving
from its hands the empire of the world in return, is the
most imposing of all personalities in French history.
We have spoken of the Enchiridion — that minute
work which combines the most secret symbols of the
Kabalah with the most beautiful Christian prayers.
Occult tradition^ attributes its composition to Leo III
and affirms that it was presented by this pontiff to
Charlemagne, as the most precious of all offerings. Any
king who owned it and knew how to use it worthily
could become master of the world. This tradition is
not perhaps to be cast aside lightly.
It assumes ( i ) the existence of a primitive and uni-
versal revelation, explaining all Secrets of Nature and
harmonising them with the Mysteries of Grace, concili-
ating reason with faith, since both are daughters of God
and concur to illuminate intelligence by their double life.
(2) The necessity — which imposes itself — of concealing
this revelation from the multitude, lest the same be
^ It is not in reality an occult tradition ; it is simply the unauthorised
claim of the grimoire.
247
The History of Magic
abused by those who do not understand it, and lest they
turn against faith not only the power of reason but that
of faith itself, to the confusion of reason, which is never
too well within the comprehension of the vulgar. (3)
The existence of a secret tradition, reserving the know-
ledge of these mysteries for the sovereign priesthood and
the temporal masters of the world. (4) The perpetuity
of certain signs or pantacles, expressing the said mysteries
in a hieroglyphical manner which is understood only by
adepts.^
The Enchiridion^ from this point of view, should be
regarded as a collection of allegorical prayers and its
secret Kabalistic pantacles arc keys thereto. Some of the
chief figures may be described as follows. The first,
which appears on the cover of the work itself, represents
a reversed equilateral triangle inscribed within a double
circle. The two words, which are written within the
triangle in the form of a cross, are Elahim and Tzabaoth^
meaning the God of armies, the equilibrium of natural
forces and the harmony of numbers.^ On the three
sides of the triangle are the three great names — Jehovah^
Adonai^ Agla ; above the name of Jehovah is the Latin
word Formatio ; above that of Adonai is Reformatio;
and above Agla is Transfonnatio. Thus creation is
ascribed to the Father, redemption or reform to the
^ It should be mentioned that this enumeration of assumptions ex-
pressed or implied in the claims of occult tradition, by the hypothesis of
its present exponent, has nothing to do with the Enchiridion, which
makes only two claims, and these are particular to itself. They are {a)
that it was sent to Charlemagne by Pope Leo and {b) that certain
prayers, which rank as its chief feature, possess mysterious power. The
suggestion of Levi's next paragraph notwithstanding, there is no other
point of view from which the book can be regarded.
^ It is said elsewhere by ^^liphas Levi that \\\^ Enchiridion has never
been published with its true figures, and one is led to suppose that a
more important MS. copy may have been in his possession. The plates
which he describes belong to a printed edition, but there are no par-
ticulars concerning it. Most of the symbols are perfectly well known
otherwise, and I have given them in the Book of Ceremonial MagiCy
where they were taken from examples with which I am acquainted.
Some of them correspond to the description of Levi.
248
Magic and Civi/isation
Son and sanctification or transmutation to the Holy
Spirit — in consonance with the mathematical laws of
action, reaction and equilibrium. Furthermore, Jehovah
is to be understood as the genesis and formation of
dogma in accordance with the elementary significance
of the four letters comprised in the sacred Tetragram ;
Adonai is the realisation of this dogma in human form,
that is to say, in the Lord manifest, who is Son of God
or perfect man ^ ; and Agla^ as we have explained fully
elsewhere, expresses the synthesis of all dogma and all
Kabalistic science, seeing that the hieroglyphics of which
this name is formed exhibit in a clear manner the triple
secret of the Great Work.^
The second pantacle is a head, having three faces,
crowned by a tiara and issuing from a vessel filled with
watet. Those who are initiated into the mysteries of the
Zohar ^ will understand the allegory which is presented
by this head. The third pantacle is the double triangle,
known as the Star of Solomon. The fourth is the Magical
Sword, bearing the device — Deo duce^ comite ferro : it is an
emblem of the Great Arcanum and the omnipotence of
the adept. The fifth is the problem of the human form
attributed to the Saviour, as resolved by the number
forty. It is the theological number of the Sephiroth multi-
plied by that of natural realities.* The sixth is the
^ Adonai according to the Zohar is one of the titles of Shekinah.
^ He has said elsewhere {a) that to pronounce the word Agla
Kabalistically is to undergo all the trials of initiation and fulfil all its
works ; ip) that the occult forces which comprise the empire of Hermes
are obedient to him who can pronounce, according to science, the in-
communicable name of Agla\ {c) and that its letters represent (i)
unity, (2) fecundity, (3) the perfect cycle, and (4) the expression of the
synthesis.
'He means that it symbolises the Creative Intelligence rising over
the waters of creation. It is not, strictly speaking, Zoharic symbolism,
but it corresponds to his own construction of one of the sections, namely,
the Book of Concealment.
* It is more especially a Rosicrucian number, and its importance in
Kabalism arises from its frequent recurrence in the scriptures of the Old
Testament. When the days of the greater exile draw to their close, and
judgment is coming upon all the peoples and all the kings of the world
249
The History of Magic
pantacle of the spirit, represented by bones, duplicating
the letter E and the mystic Tau, or T. The seventh and
most important is the Great Magical Monogram, inter-
preting the keys of Solomon, the Tetragram, the sign of
the Labarum^ and the master-word of adeptship/ This
pantacle is read by its revolution wheelwise and is pro-
nounced Rota, Taro or Tora. The letter A is frequently
replaced in this seal by the number i, which is its equiva-
lent. The pantacle in question contains also the form
and value of the four hieroglyphical emblems of the
Tarot suits — being the Wand, Cup, Sword and Denier.
These elementary hieroglyphics recur everywhere on the
sacred monuments of Egypt ; while Homer also depicts
them on the shield of Achilles, placing them in the same
order as the author of the Enchiridion. The proofs of
these explanations, if offered in the present place, would
divert us from our immediate subject and would more-
over demand a special study which we hope to under-
take and make public at some future time.^
The magical sword or dagger depicted in the
Enchiridion seems to have been the particular symbol of
the Secret Tribunal, or Company of Free Judges. It is
in the form of a cross and is concealed or enveloped by
the device which surrounds it. God alone wields it, and
he who strikes therewith is responsible to none for his
actions. As such, it is terrible in its menace and so also
in its privilege. We know that the Vehmic dagger
who have oppressed Israel, it is said that a pillar of fire shall be raised
from earth to heaven and shall be visible to everyone for a period of
forty days. The King Messiah will leave that place which is called the
Bird's Nest in the Garden of Eden and will manifest in the land of
Galilee. At the end of the forty days a splendid star of all colours will
appear in the East, &c. Zohar^ Part II., fol. 7b.
* A reference to Plate III in the Book of Ceremonial Magic will shew
that the emblem in question is not the Labarum. For a design which
is intended to represent the latter, see Plate IV, Fig. 2. There is really
no connection between the Sigils of the Enchiridion and the text of the
work.
* ^liphas L6vi wrote and published much after the History of Magic^
but the intention here expressed did not pass into realisation.
250
Magic and Civilisatmi
smote in the dark those who were guilty, their crime
itself often remaining unknown. What are the facts
respecting this appalling justice ? The answer involves
an excursion into realms of shadow which history has
failed to enlighten and recourse to traditions and legends
for light which science cannot give.
The Free Judges were a secret association opposed,
but in the interests of order and of government, to
anarchic and revolutionary societies which were secret in
like manner. We know that superstitions die hard and
that degenerated Druidism had struck its roots deeply in
the savage lands of the North. The recurring insurrec-
tions of Saxons testified to a fanaticism which was (a)
always turbulent, and (b) incapable of repression by moral
force alone. All defeated forms of worship — Roman
paganism, Germanic idolatry, Jewish rancour conspired
against victorious Christianity. Nocturnal assemblies
took place ; thereat the conspirators cemented their
alliance with the blood of human victims ; and a pan-
theistic idol of monstrous form, with the horns of a goat,
presided over festivals which might be called aga-pce of
hatred. In a word, the Sabbath v/as still celebrated in
every forest and wild of yet unreclaimed provinces.
The adepts who attended them were masked and other-
wise unrecognisable ; the assemblies extinguished their
lights and broke up before daybreak ; the guilty were to
be found everywhere, and they could be brought to
book nowhere. It came about therefore that Charle-
magne determined to fight them with their own
weapons.
In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league
with sectarians against lawful authority ; female sorcerers
were attached to castles as courtesans ; bandits who
frequented the Sabbaths divided with nobles the blood-
stained loot of rapine ; feudal courts were at the com-
mand of the highest bidder ; and the public burdens
weighed with all their force only on the weak and poor.
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The History of Magic
The evil was at its height in Westphalia/ and faithful
agents were despatched thither by Charlemagne entrusted
with a secret mission,^ Whatsoever energy remained
among the oppressed, whosoever still loved justice,
whether among the people or among the nobility, were
drawn by these emissaries together, bound by pledges
and vigilance in common. To the initiates thus incor-
porated they made known the full powers which they
carried from the emperor himself, and they proceeded to
institute the Tribunal of Free Judges.^
They were a kind of secret police, having the right
of life and death. The mystery which surrounded their
judgments, the swiftness of their executions, helped to
impress the imagination of people still in barbarism.
The Holy Vehm assumed gigantic proportions ; men
shuddered in describing apparitions of masked persons,
of summonses nailed to the doors of nobles in the very
midst of their watch-guards and their orgies, of brigand-
chiefs found dead with the terrible cruciform dagger in
their breasts and on the scroll attached thereto an extract
from the sentence of the Holy Vehm. The Tribunal
affected most fantastic forms of procedure : the guilty
person, cited to appear at some discredited cross-road,
was taken to the assembly by a man clothed in black,
^ At the period in question Westphalia comprehended the region be-
tween the Rhine and the Weser. Its southern boundary was the
mountains of Hesse ; its northern the district of Friesland, which at that
time extended from Holland to Schleswig.
* No secret mission in the sense intended by Eliphas Levi was ever
entrusted by Charlemagne. He had overcome the Saxons of Westphalia
after a thirty years' war, had enforced the religion of the conqueror
upon them, and had established a Frankish system of government
therein.
' The origin of the Secret Tribunal is clouded, like all the history of
its period, but it is quite certain that it is referable to the middle of the
thirteenth century. It should be added that Eliphas Levi was by no
means author of the Charlemagne hypothesis, which had been advanced
many years previously. The competitive views are numerous. It will
be seen directly that a document of the Tribunal claims that it originated
in the days of Charlemagne, supposing that it has been quoted correctly.
Jules Garinet supported the claim without shewing any knowledge on
the subject.
252
Magic and Civilisation
who bandaged his eyes and led him forward in silence.
This occurred invariably at some unseemly hour of the
night, for judgment was never pronounced except at
midnight. The criminal was carried into a vast under-
ground vault, where he was questioned by one voice.^
The hoodwink was removed, the vault was illuminated
in all its depth and height, and the Free Judges sat
masked and wearing black vestures. The sentences were
not capital invariably, for those who judged were familiar
with the circumstances of the crime, though nothing
transpired concerning them, as death would have over-
taken the revealer instantly.^ Sometimes these formidable
assemblies were so crowded that they were comparable
to an army of avengers ; one night the emperor himself
presided over the Secret Tribunal, and more than one
thousand Free Judges sat in a circle round him.^ In the
year 1400, ten thousand members existed in Germany.
People with a bad conscience suspected their own relations
and friends. William of Brunswick is reported to have
said on a certain occasion : " If Duke Adolphus of
Schleswig should pay me a visit, I must infallibly hang
him, as I do not wish to be hanged." Frederick of
Brunswick, a prince of the same family, who was emperor
for a moment, refused to obey a citation of the Free
Judges, and from that time forward he went armed from
head to foot and surrounded by guards. One day, how-
ever, he fell a little apart from his suite and had occasion
to loosen some part of his armour. He did not return
^ The meetings of the Tribunal were frequently held in the town-
house and the castle, sometimes in the market-place, and on rare occasions
in churchyards. There is only one record concerning a session under-
ground. The general place was under trees in the open air.
* An accused person had the right to conduct his own defence, or he
could bring an advocate with him. There were also certain circumstances
under which there was the right of appeal- ,
^ The evidence is wanting for this extraordinary statement. Eliphas
Levi seems to have been under the impression that the Tribunal was like
a Masonic Grand Lodge, with one mode and place of meeting. It was
naturally composed of many tribunals and met, as we have seen, in all
kinds of places.
253
The History of Magic
and his guards entered the copse where he had sought
retirement for a moment. The unfortunate man was in
the act of expiring, with the dagger of the Holy Vehm
in his body and his sentence attached to the weapon.
Looking round in all directions, they could distinguish a
masked man retreating at a slow pace, but no one dared
to follow him.
The Code of the Vehmic Court was found in the
ancient archives of Westphalia and has been printed in
the Reichstheater of Miiller, under the following title :
** Code and Statutes of the Holy Secret Tribunal of Free
Counts and Free Judges of Westphalia, established in the
year 772 by the Emperor Charlemagne and revised in
1404 by King Robert, who made those alterations and
additions requisite for the administration of justice in the
tribunals of the illuminated, after investing them with his
own authority.*'
A note on the first page forbade any profane person
to glance at the book under penalty of death. The word
illuminated, here given to the associates of the Secret
Tribunal, unfolds their entire mission : they had to track
down in the shadows those who worshipped the darkness ;
they counterchecked mysteriously those who conspired
against society in favour of mystery ; but they were
themselves the secret soldiers of light, who cast the light
of day on criminal plottings, and it is this which was
signified by a sudden splendour illuminating the Tribunal
when it pronounced sentence.
The public provisions of the lav/ under Charlemagne
authorised this holy war against the tyrants of the
night. The records may be consulted to ascertain the
penalties inflicted on sorcerers, diviners, enchanters, noueurs
cT aiguilette^ and those who administered poison in the
guise of love-philtres. The same laws made it penal to
trouble the air, raise tempests, construct characters and
talismans, cast lots, practise witchcraft and magical
charms, whether on men or cattle. Sorcerers, astrologers,
254
Magic and Civilisation
diviners, necromancers, occult mathematicians are de-
clared execrable and made subject to punishment in the
same way as thieves and assassins. Such severity will be
understood by recalling all that has been said on the
horrible rites of Black Magic and its infant sacrifices.
The danger must have been grave indeed when its re-
pression assumed forms at once so severe and numerous.
Another institution which is referable to the same
root was that of knight-errantry. The knights-errant
were a species of Free Judges who appealed to God and
their spears against all the oppressions of castellans and
all the malice of necromancers. They were armed mis-
sionaries, who protected themselves with the sign of the
cross and then clove miscreants asunder ; after such
manner did they earn the remembrance of some noble
dame, sanctifying love by the martyrdom of a life which
was one of utter self-devotion. We are far removed
already from those pagan courtesans to whom slaves were
offered in sacrifice and for whom the conquerors of the
ancient world burnt cities. For the ladies of Christendom
other sacrifices were requisite ; life must have been risked
in the cause of the weak and oppressed, captives must
have been set free, punishment meted out to the pro-
faners of holy affections ; and then those lovely and white
ladies, whose skirts were embroidered with heraldic
badges ; whose hands were pale and delicate ; those living
madonnas, proud as lilies, who came back from church,
with Books of Hours under their arms and rosaries at
their girdles, would remove a veil broidered with gold or
silver and give it as a scarf to the knight who knelt be-
fore them, praying to them and dreaming of God. Let
us forget Eve and her errors ; they are forgiven a
thousand times, and are more than atoned for by this
ineffable grace of the noble daughters of Mary.
^55
CHAPTER V
MAGICIANS
That fundamental dogma of transcendental science which
consecrates the eternal law of equilibrium attained its
plenary realisation in the constitution of the Christian
world. Two living pillars — the Pope and Emperor —
supported the structure of civilisation. But the empire
suffered partition when it slipped from the feeble hands
of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald. The tem-
poral power, abandoned to the chances of conquests or
intrigue, lost the providential unity which kept it in
harmony with Rome. The Pope had often to intervene
as grand justiciary and, at his proper risk and peril, he
restrained the ambitions and audacity of many com-
petitive sovereigns.
Excommunication was at that time a terrible penalty,
for it was sanctioned by universal belief, and it produced
phenomena which awed the crowd, being mysterious
effects of the magnetic current of condemnation. There
is the example of Robert the Pious, who, having incurred
this terrible penalty by an unlawful marriage, became
the father of a monstrous child, similar to those effigies
of demons which mediaeval art represented in such ridi-
culous aspects of deformity. The melancholy fruit of
a forbidden union bore witness at least to the tortured
conscience and frightful dreams by which the mother
was possessed. Robert accepted the event as a proof of
the wrath of God and submitted to the papal judgment.
Renouncing a marriage which the Church declared in-
cestuous, he repudiated Bertha to espouse Constance of
Provence, and it remained for him to recognise in the
256
Magic and Civilisation
questionable morals and arrogant character of his new
bride a second chastisement of heaven.
The makers of chronicles at the period were en-
amoured of diabolical legends, but their records exhibit
more of credulity than of good taste. Every monkish
malady, every unhealthy nightmare of nuns, is looked
upon as a case of veridic apparition. The result is re-
pellent phantasmagoria, stupid allocutions, impossible
transfigurations, to which the artistic spirit of Cyrano
de Bergerac is the one thing wanting to render them
entertaining creations. From the reign of Robert to
that of St. Louis there is nothing, however, which seems
to deserve recounting.^
The famous Rabbi Jechiel, great Kabalist and truly
remarkable physician, lived in the reign of St. Louis.
All that is told of his lamp and magical nail goes to
prove that he had discovered electricity, or was at least
acquainted with its most important uses.^ Ancient as
that of Magic, the knowledge of this force was trans-
mitted as one of the keys of the greater initiation.
When the night came a radiant star appeared in the
lodging of Jechiel, the light being so brilliant that no
eye could gaze thereon without being dazzled, while
the beam that it darted was tinted with rainbow colours.
It was never known to fail and it was never replenished
with oil or other combustible substarnce extant at that
time. When importunity or ill-intentioned curiosity
sought to intrude on Jechiel by knocking persistently
^ That this statement is amply justified may be seen by a reference
to La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France^ by T. De Cauzons, a work of
considerable research published within the last few years in 4 vols.
The section entitled La Magie sous les premiers Capdtiens is a record
of trivialities concerning diabolical manifestations and can have been
included only for the sake of chronological completeness.
^ The story of Rabbi Jechiel's device of self-protection is told by
Bartolocci, s.v. R. Jechiel de Parisio, in the Magna Bibliotheca Rab-
binical vol. iii. pp. 834, 835. It is on the authority of R. GhedaHa ben
David lacchiia. But although Jechiel is supposed to have been a
magician there was neither electricity nor magic in his process, only
a kind of trap at his own door step or threshold.
257 R
The History of Magic
at his door, the Rabbi struck a nail fixed in his cabinet,
producing simultaneously a blue spark on the head of
the nail and the door-knocker. The ill-advised person
was shaken in such a manner that he cried for mercy,
believing that the earth was opening under his feet. One
day a hostile mob swarmed about the entrance, uttering
murmurs and menaces, while they stood with interlaced
arms to resist the commotion and supposed quaking of
the ground. The boldest among them plied furiously
at the knocker, but Jechiel pressed his nail ; in a moment
the assailants were tumbled one over another and fled
crying out like people who have been burnt. They were
quite sure that the earth had opened and swallowed
them as far as the knees ; they knew not how they got
out ; but nothing would persuade them to return and
renew the attack. The sorcerer thus earned quietude by
the terror which he diffused.
St. Louis, great Catholic as he was, was also a great
king, and wishing to know Jechiel, he summoned him
to his court,^ had several conversations with him, was
satisfied fully by his explanations, protected him from
his enemies, and during the rest of his life never failed
to testify esteem for him and to act benevolently towards
him.
Albertus Magnus lived at the same period, and he
still passes among the people as grand master of all
magicians.^ Historians of the time affirm that he pos-
sessed the Philosophic Stone ^ and that after studying
for thirty years he had succeeded in solving the problem
of the android — in other words, that he had fabricated
an artificial man who was endowed with life and speech,
^ It so happens that he went to see him and fell into the trap of the
Jew. Garinet is the authority for the imaginary visit to the court of St.
Louis. He follows Sauval.
2 This paragraph is adapted from Garinet, Hist, de la Magie en
France^ p. 76.
^ Many treatises on alchemy have been fathered on Albertus Magnus,
including Libellus de Alchymia and Concordantia Philosophorunty
258
Magic and Civilisation
who could, in fact, answer questions with such pre-
cision and subtlety that St. Thomas Aquinas, infuriated
at being unable to silence the image, broke it with a blow
of his stick. Such is the popular fable ; let us now see
what it signifies.
The mystery of the formation of man and of his
primitive appearance on earth have continually absorbed
seekers after the problems of Nature. Man, as a fact,
appears last in the world of fossils, and the Mosaic days
of creation have deposited their successive remains, bear-
ing witness that those days were in reality long periods
of time. How then was humanity formed ? Genesis
testifies that God made Adam from the slime of the
earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life —
a statement the truth of which we do not question for a
moment ; but we repudiate notwithstanding the heretical
and anthropomorphic idea of a Deity moulding clay with
His fingers. God, being a pure spirit, has no hands,
and He causes His creatures to develop one from another
by the power which He has imparted to Nature. If
therefore the Lord made Adam from the dust of the
earth, we must understand that man came out of that
earth under the Divine Influence and yet after a natural
manner. The name Adam in Hebrew signifies red earth,^
but what is this earth actually.'* It is that which the
alchemists sought, and it follows that the Great Work
was not the secret of metallic transmutation— a trivial
and accessory result — but the universal secret of life.^ It
was the quest for the middle point of transformation, at
which light becomes matter and condenses into an earth
containing within itself the principle of motion and of
^ According to the Zohar^ Adam was formed of earth brou^^ht from
the four quarters, and this is really an allusion to the symbolic corre-
spondence between the parts of his personality and the four elements of
ancient physics.
* The universal secret which was sought by mystic Alchemy was
more truly that of the life of life ; it was the quest of transmutation in
God.
259
The History of Magic
life. It was the generalization of the phenomenon which
tinges the blood red by the creation of those innumerable
corpuscles which are magnetic even as the worlds and
are alive like animals. For disciples of Hermes, the
metals were the coagulated blood of earth, passing, like
that of man, from white to black and from black to
crimson, following the work of the light.^ To set this
fluid in motion by means of heat and impart thereto the
tingeing fructification of light by the aid of electricity —
such was the first part of the work of wisdom. The end
was more arduous and sublime ; it was a question of
recovering the adamic earth, which is the coagulated
blood of the vital earth ; and the supreme dream of
philosophers was to accomplish the work of Prometheus
by imitating the work of God — ^that is to say, by pro-
ducing a man who should be the child of science, as
Adam was child of divine omnipotence. The dream
was insensate perhaps, and yet it was sublime.
Black Magic, which ever apes the Magic of Light,
but takes it, as it were, backwards, was also concerned
with the android, that it might be used as an instrument
of passion and an oracle of hell. For this object it
was requisite to outrage Nature and obtain a species
of venomous fungus, full of concentrated human malice
— the living realisation of all crime. For this reason
magicians sought the mandragore beneath a gibbet from
which some corpse was suspended ; they caused it to be
torn up by a dog tied to the plant, a mortal blow being
inflicted on the animal. The eradication was eflfected by
the convulsions of the agonised beast ; the dog's soul
passed into the plant and also attracted thereto that
of the hanged man. Enough of these horrors and
absurdities ; those who are curious in such knowledge
^ The thesis of physical Alchemy was that Nature always intended to
produce gold but was thwarted by the impurity of the media amidst
which she worked under the earth. The inferior metals resulted. The
end of Hermetic art was to complete the design of Nature and raise
what is base to perfection.
260
Magic and Civilisation
may consult the common grimoire known along the
country-side under the name of Little Albert, They will
find further the method of making a mandragore in
the form of a cock with a human face. Stupidity and
impiety vie one with another in all such processes, for
Nature cannot be outraged wilfully without at the same
time reversing the laws of reason.
Albertus Magnus was neither infanticide nor deicide ;
he was neither guilty of the crime of Tantalus nor that
of Prometheus; but he had succeeded in creating and
arming at all points that purely scholastic theology,
outcome of the categories of Aristotle and the sentences
of Peter Lombard, that logic of syllogism consisting of
argumentation in place of reasoning and of finding an
answer for everything by subtleties concerning the terms.
It was less a philosophy than a philosophical automaton,
replying in an arbitrary manner and unrolling its theses like
the revolution of machinery. 1 1 was in no sense the human
logoSy but the. unvaried cry of a mechanism, the inanimate
speech of an android. It was the fatal precision of
machinery, in place of the free application of rational
necessities. St. Thomas Aquinas,^ with one blow, shat-
tered this scaffolding of words when he proclaimed the
eternal empire of reason in that magnificent sentence
which has been cited already so often : '* A thing is not
just because God wills it, but God wills it because it
is just." The approximate consequence of this proposi-
tion, in arguing from the greater to the Jesser, was : A
thing is not true because Aristotle has said it, but
Aristotle could not say it reasonably unless it were true.
Seek first therefore truth and justice, and the science of
Aristotle shall be added unto you. Aristotle, galvanised
by scholasticism, was the veritable android of Albertus
Magnus, while the master's wand of St. Thomas Aquinas
1 St. Thomas Aquinas wrote eight treatises on alchemy, if the ascrip-
tions of the literature could be trusted. They are of the same authenticity
as those of Albertus Magnus.
261
The History of Magic
was the doctrine of the Summa Totius Theologi^, a master-
piece of power and reason which will again be studied in
our theological schools when it is proposed to return
seriously to sane and healthy subjects.^
As for the Philosophical Stone bequeathed by St.
Dominic^ to Albert and by the latter to St. Thomas
Aquinas, we must understand it as the philosophical and
religious basis of ideas prevalent at the period. Had
St. Dominic been able to accomplish the Great Work he
would have secured for Rome that empire of the world
about which he was so jealous for the Church, and
would have diverted the fire which consumed so many
heretics to the heating of his own crucibles. St. Thomas
changed all that he touched into gold, but this is a figure
of speech only, gold being in this case an emblem of
truth.
It is opportune at this point to say a few further
words concerning that Hermetic science cultivated from
the first Christian centuries by Ostanes, Romarius, Queen
Cleopatra, the Arabian Geber, Alfarabius and Salmanas,
by Morien, Artephius and Aristeus.^ Understood in
an absolute manner, this science may be called the
Kabalah in realisation, or the Magic of Works. It has
therefore three analogous degrees — religious realisation,
philosophical realisation and physical realisation. The
first is the solid basis of empire and priesthood ; the
second is the establishment of an absolute doctrine and
^ The study in question was enjoined in a particular manner by
Leo XIII.
* I do not know or have forgotten how this legend originated, but in
any case no works on transmutation have been imputed to St. Dominic,
which leads me to think tharthe story of his adeptship did not attain any
considerable currency.
' A fragment of Ostanes is included in the Byzantine collection of
ancient alchemists. Romarius should read Comarius, whose tract in
the same collection is supposed to be addressed to Cleopatra. Salmanas
wrote on the fabrication of artificial pearls and was supposed to be an
Arab. A treatise on weights and measures is attributed to Cleopatra
and there are also some Latin forgeries. The other names are well
known in the literature of Alchemy.
262
Magic and Civilisation
an hierarchic instruction ; the last is the discovery and
application, within the measures of the Microcosm or
lesser world, of that creative law which peoples in-
cessantly the greater universe. The law in question
is one of movement combined with substance, of the
fixed with the volatile, humid with solid. Its principle
is divine impulsion, its instrument the universal light —
ethereal in the infinite, astral in stars and planets,
metallic, specific or mercurial" in metals, vegetable in
plants, vital in animals, magnetic or personal in men.
This light is the quintessence of Paracelsus and is
either latent or active in all created substances. Such
?[uintessence is the true elixir of life, and it is extracted
rom earth by cultivation ; from metals by incorporation,
rectification, exaltation and synthesis ; from plants by
distillation and coction ; from animals by absorption ;
from men by generation ; from the air by respiration.
In this sense we are told by Aristeus that air must be
derived from air; by Khunrath that living mercury
must be obtained from the perfect man formed by the
androgyne ; by practically all the sages, that the medicine
of metals must be derived from metals and that this
medicine — though fundamentally one in all kingdoms —
is graduated and specified according to forms and species.
Its use is threefold — by sympathy, repulsion or equili-
brium. The graduated quintessence was only the
auxiliary of forces; the medicine of each kingdom
must be derived from the kingdom itself, with the
addition of basic mercury — terrestrial or mineral — and
of synthetic living mercury, or human magnetism.
Such is the rapid and summary sketch of this science,
which is vast and profound as the Kabalah, mysterious
as Magic, real as the exact sciences, but too long and
too often discredited by the frustrated greed of false
adepts and by the obscurities with which true sages have
surrounded their theories and their processes.
263
CHAPTER VI
SOME FAMOUS PROSECUTIONS
The societies of the elder world perished through the
materialistic egoism of castes, becoming petrified on their
own part, isolating the common people in a hopeless
reprobation and reserving the reins of power to a small
number of the elect, so that it was deprived of that
circulation which is the principle of progress, motion
and life. Power without antagonism, without competi-
tion and hence without control, proved fatal to the
sacerdotal royalties. The republics, on the other hand,
perished by the conflict of liberties which, in the ab-
sence of all duty, hierarchically and highly sanctioned,
are speedily converted into so many tyrannies in rivalry
with one another. To find a stable point between these
two abysses, the idea of Christian hierophants was to
create a society pledged to self-sacrifice by solemn vows,
protected by severe rules, recruited by initiation, and, as
sole depositary of the great religious and social secrets,
making kings and pontiffs without being itself exposed
to the corruptions of empire. Such was the secret of
that kingdom of Christ Jesus which, without being of
this world, ruled over all its grandeurs. The same idea
presided over the establishments of the great religious
orders which were so often at war with secular authori-
ties, whether ecclesiastical or civil. A similar realisation
was also dreamed by dissident sects of Gnostics and
Illuminati, which claimed to pin their faith on the
primitive Christian tradition of St. John. A time came
when this dream was an actual menace for the Church
and the State, when a rich and dissolute Order, initiated
264
-J9[)j[en5 janijaQ
jA
^J^z
THE PHILOSOPHICAL CROSS, OR PLAN OF THE THIRD TEMPLE
Facing p. 264
Magic and Civilisation
into the mysterious doctrines of the Kabalah/ seemed
ready to turn on legitimate authority, on the conservative
principles of the hierarchy, menacing the entire world
with a gigantic revolution. The Templars, whose history
is understood so little, were the terrible conspirators in
question, and it is time at length to reveal the secret of
their fall, so absolving the memory of Clement V and
Philippe the Fair.
In 1118 nine crusading knights, then in the East —
among whom was Geoffrey de Saint-Omer and Hugh
de Payens — dedicated themselves to religion, placing
their vows in the hands of the patriarch of Constan-
tinople, which seat had always been hostile, secretly or
openly, to that of Rome since the days of Photius. The
avowed object of the Templars was to protect Christians
on pilgrimage to the holy places ; their concealed end
was to rebuild the Temple of Solomon on the model
foreshewn by Ezekiel. Such a restoration, predicted
formally by Judaising mystics of the first Christian
centuries, had become the secret dream of the Eastern
patriarchs. So rebuilt and consecrated to the Catholic
worship, the Temple of Solomon would have been in
effect the metropolis of the universe. East would
prevail over West and the patriarchs of Constan-
tinople would seize the papacy.'^
To explain the name of Templars adopted by this
military Order, historians assume that Baldwin II, King
of Jerusalem, gave them a house in the vicinity of the
Temple of Solomon. But they are guilty of a serious
anachronism, since at that period the edifice in question
^ This must be understood in the general sense of the Secret
Tradition perpetuated in various forms through Christian times. The
Templars had no concern in the secret schools of Jewry. On the
basis of the official process which resulted in their condemnation, they
have been accused of Black Magic, Sorcery and of entering into a
league with the Order of Assassins.
* I have dealt with the claims of this speculation in my Secret
Tradition in Freemasonry^ vol. i. p. 300 et seq.
265
The History of Magic
had not only ceased to exist, and not only was there no
stone of Zerubbabel's Second Temple left upon another,
but it would have been difficult to indicate the site on
which they stood. It is to be concluded that the House
allotted to the Templars by Baldwin was not situated
in the vicinity of Solomon's Temple but of that place on
which these secret and armed missionaries of the Eastern
patriarch designed to rebuild it.
The Templars took for their sc^'ptural models the
military Masons of Zerubbabel, who v^orked with sword
in one hand and trowel in the other. ^ Hence sword and
trowel became their insignia when at a later period, as
we shall see, they concealed themselves under the name
of Masonic Brothers. The trowel of the Templars is
fourfold ; the triangular blades are disposed in the
form of a cross, constituting a Kabalistic pantacle known
as the Cross of the East.^
The inmost thought of Hugh de Payens, in estab-
lishing his Order, was not precisely to serve the ambition
of the patriarchs of Constantinople. At that period
there was a sect of Christian Johannites in the East who
claimed to be alone initiated into the inner mysteries of
the Saviour's religion ; they claimed also to know the
true history of Jesus Christ. Adopting some part of
the Jewish traditions and Talmudic accounts, they re-
garded the facts in the gospels as allegories, of which
St. John had the key. The proof was his saying that if
all things done by Jesus were recorded, ** I suppose
^ The reference is really to the fourth chapter of the apocryphal
Book of Nehemiahy which is the Second Book of EsdraSy and to the
Masons of Nehemiah, not of Zerubbabel. The latter was concerned with
the building of the Second Temple and the former with that of the
walls about Jerusalem. Half of the young men did the work of
restoring the fortifications and half stood in readiness to fight. The
builders also were girded with a sword about the reins. The sword in
one hand and trowel in another is a symbolical expression.
* It is obvious that the arrangement of four triangular blades in
a cruciform pattern would constitute an ordinary Maltese cross or
cross of the Knights of St. John. This was an Assyrian emblem in
pre-Christian times.
266
Magic and Civilisation
that even the world itself could not contain the books
that should be written." They held that such a state-
ment would be ridiculous exaggeration unless it referred
to allegory and legend, which can be varied and pro-
longed to infinity. As to the actual historical facts, the
Johannites recounted what follows.
A young girl of Nazareth, named Miriam, betrothed
to a young man of her own tribe, named Jochanan, was
surprised by a certain Pandira or Panther, who entered
her chamber in the garb and under the name of her lover
and by force fulfilled his desires. Jochanan, becoming
acquainted with her misfortune, left her without com-
promising her because as a fact she was innocent ; and
the girl was delivered of a son, who received the name
of Joshua or Jesus. The infant was adopted by a Rabbi
named Joseph, who carried him into Egypt, where he
was initiated into the secret sciences, and the priests of
Osiris, recognising that he was the true incarnation of
Horus so long promised to the adepts, consecrated him
sovereign pontiff of the universal religion. Joshua and
Joseph returned to Judea, where the knowledge and
virtue of the young man excited very soon the envy and
hatred of the priests, who one day reproached him
publicly with the illegitimacy of his birth. Joshua, who
loved and venerated his mother, questioned his master
and learned the whole history respecting the crime of
Pandira and the misfortunes of Miriam. His first
impulse was to deny her in public when he said in the
middle of a marriage-feast: "Woman, what is there in
common between you and me ?*' But afterwards, realising
that an unfortunate woman must not be punished for
having suffered what she could not prevent, he cried :
*' My mother has in no wise sinned, nor has she lost
her innocence ; she is virgin and yet is mother : let
the twofold honour be paid to her. As for me, I
have no father on earth ; I am the son of God and
humanity."
267
The History of Magic
We will not proceed further with a fiction so distress-
ing to the hearts of Christians ; let it suffice to say that
the Johannites went so far as to make St. John the
Evangelist responsible for this spurious tradition and
that they attributed to the apostle in question the founda-
tion of their secret church. The grand pontiffs of this
sect assumed the title of Christ and claimed an uninter-
rupted transmission of powers from the days of St. John.
The person who boasted these imaginary privileges at
the epoch of the foundation of the Temple was named
Theoclet. He was acquainted with Hugh de Payens,
whom he initiated into the mysteries and the hopes of
his supposititious church ; ^ he seduced him by ideas of
sovereign priesthood and supreme royalty ; in fine, he
designated him his successor. Thus was the order of
Knights of the Temple tainted from the beginning with
schism and conspiracy against kings. These tendencies
were wrapped in profound mystery, for the Order made
profession externally of the uttermost orthodoxy. The
chiefs alone knew whither it was tending, the rest follow-
ing in good faith.
To acquire wealth and influence, to intrigue on the
basis of these and at need fight for the establishment of
Johannite dogma — such were the means and end proposed
by the initiated brethren. " Observe," they argued to
themselves, *' the papacy and rival monarchies engaged
in the work of haggling, selling one another, falling into
corruption and to-morrow perhaps destroying one an-
other. All this indicates heritage for the Temple ; a
little while, and the nations will demand sovereigns and
pontiffs from among us ; we shall be the equilibrium of
the universe, arbiters and masters of the world."
The Templars had two doctrines ; one was concealed
* The blasphemous fiction is well known and its root is in the Sepher
Toldos Jeshu; it is inaccurate to call it a tradition; more properly it is
a lying invention. I have failed to discover a source for the Theoclet
story, but it is barely possible that it may have risen up within the circle
of Fabr^ Palaprat's Ordre du Temple.
268
Magic and Civilisation
and reserved to the leaders, being that of Johannism ; ^
the other was public, being Roman Catholic doctrine.
They deceived in this manner the enemies that they
hoped to supplant. The Johannism of the adepts was
the Kabalah of the Gnostics, but it degenerated speedily
into a mystic pantheism carried even to idolatry of
Nature and hatred of all revealed dogma. For their
better success, and in order to secure partisans, they
fostered the regrets of every fallen worship and the hopes
of every new cultus, promising to all liberty of conscience
and a new orthodoxy which should be the synthesis of all
persecuted beliefs. They went even so far as to recog-
nise the pantheistic symbolism of the grand masters of
Black Magic, and the better to isolate themselves from
obedience to a religion by which they were condemned
beforehand, they rendered divine honours to the mon-
strous idol Baphomet,^ even as of old the dissenting tribes
had adored the Golden Calf of Dan and Bethel. Certain
monuments of recent discovery and certain precious docu-
ments belonging to the thirteenth century offer abundant
proof of all that is advanced here. Other evidences are
concealed in the annals and beneath the symbols of
Occult Masonry.
With the seeds of death sown in its very principle
and anarchic because it was heretical, the Order of
Knights of the Temple had conceived a great work
which it was incapable of executing, because it understood
* In the year 1844 Jacques Matter made a special study of the
accusations against Knights Templar in his Histoire Critique du Gnosti-
cismey vol. iii. p. 31 5 et seg. He states that the alleged preference of the
Templars for St. John's Gospel is nowhere attested by the history of the
Order. They were not therefore tinctured by remanents of Paulician
Gnosticism, as it is not likely that they would be.
2 Elsewhere i^liphas L^vi says : {a) That the hypothetical idol
Baphomet was a symbolical figure representing the First Matter of the
Magnum Opus^ which is the Astral Light ; {b) That it signified further
the god Pan, which may be identified with " the Christ of dissident sacer-
dotalism " ; \c) That the Baphometic head is "a beautiful allegory which
attributes to thought alone the first and creative cause " ; and finally, {pi)
That it is " nothing more than an innocent and even a pious hieroglyph.
269
The History of Magic
neither humility nor personal abnegation. For the rest,
the Templars, being in most cases without education and
capable only of wielding the sword successfully, possessed
no qualification for over-ruling or for binding at need
that queen of the world called public opinion. Hugh de
Paycns did not possess the depth of view which distin-
guished at a later period the military founder of a militia
not less formidable to kings. The Templars were Jesuits
who failed. Their principle was to become rich in order
to purchase the world and, as a fact, they so became,
for in 1 3 12 they possessed in Europe alone more than
9000 manors. Wealth was also the rock on which they
broke ; they became insolent and permitted their disdain
for the religious and social institutions which they hoped
to upset to appear in public. Everyone knows the
answer of Richard Cceur de Lion to the confidential
priest who had said to him : *' Sire, you have three
daughters who cost you dearly and of whom it would be
to your great advantage if you were set free : they are
ambition, avarice and luxury." . . . ** That is true,"
said the king. ** Well, well, let us marry them. I
give ambition to the Templars, avarice to the monks
and luxury to the bishops. I am certain in advance of
the consent of all the parties."
The ambition of the Templars proved fatal to them-
selves ; their projects were divined and anticipated. Pope
Clement V and king Philip the Fair gave the signal to
Europe, and the Templars, caught so to speak in a net,
were arrested, disarmed and cast into prison. Never
was a coup d'etat accomplished with such appalling uni-
formity. The entire world was dumbfounded and awaited
the strange revelations of a prosecution which was to
echo down through the ages. But it was impossible to
unveil before the people the plan of the Templar con-
spiracy ; to do so would have initiated the multitude
into secrets reserved for masters. Recourse was had
therefore to the charge of Magic, for which accusers and
270
Magic and Civilisation
witnesses were both forthcoming. The Templars, in
the ceremony of their reception, spat upon the image of
Christ, denied God, gave obscene kisses to the Grand
Master, adored a brazen head with carbuncles for eyes,
held commune with a great black cat and had inter-
course with female demons. Such are the items put
forward seriously in the act of indictment. The end of this
drama is familiar ; Jacques de Molay and his companions
perished in the flames, but before dying the grand master
of the Temple organised and instituted Occult Masonry.
Within the walls of his prison he founded four Metro-
politan Lodges — at Naples for the East, Edinburgh for
the West, Stockholm for the North and Paris for the
South. The Pope and King perished speedily in a strange
and sudden manner.^ Squin de Florian, the accuser in
chief of the Order, was assassinated. In breaking the
sword of the Templars it was converted into a dagger
and their proscribed trowels henceforth were utilised only
in the erection of tombs. Let them pass at this point
into darkness, wherein they took refuge while maturing
their vengeance. We shall see them reappear at the
great epoch of the Revolution and we shall recognise
them by their signs and by their works.
The greatest magical prosecution to be found in
history, after that of the Temple, was the trial of a
maid who was, moreover, almost a saint. The Church,
in this case, has been accused of subservience to the base
resentment of a vanquished party, and it has been asked
earnestly what anathemas of the Chair of St. Peter fell
upon the assassins of Joan of Arc.^ To those who are
* The suggestion is that they were summoned by Jacques de Molay
to appear before the Divine Tribunal within a year and a day, there to
answer for their injustice, and that they died within the time mentioned,
which does not happen to be true.
^ The revision of the process which condemned the Maid of Orleans
was begun by Charles VII himself in 1449. In 1552 twelve articles
were drawn up, designed to exhibit its illegality and injustice. For poli-
tical reasons, meaning the relations between France and England, the
271
The History of Magic
really unacquainted, it may be said at once that Pierre
Cauchon, the unworthy Bishop of Beauvais, struck sud-
denly with death by the hand of God, was excommuni-
cated after death by Callixtus IV, his remains being
taken from consecrated ground and cast into the public
sewers. It was not therefore the Church which judged
and condemned the Maid of Orleans, but a bad priest
and an apostate.
Charles VII, who gave up this noble girl to her
destroyers, fell afterwards into the hands of an avenging
providence ; he died of self-starvation, through dread of
being poisoned by his own son. Fear is the torment of
the base. The king in question gave up his life to a
courtesan, and for her he burdened with debt a kingdom
which had been saved to him by a virgin. Courtesan
and virgin have been celebrated by our national
poets — Joan of Arc by Voltaire and Agnes Sorel by
B^ranger.
Joan perished in her innocence, but the laws against
Magic were vindicated soon after in the case of one who
was chief among the guilty. The personage in question
was one of the most valiant captains under Charles VII,
but the services which he rendered to the state could not
counterbalance the extent and enormity of his crimes.
All tales of ogres and Croquemitaine were realised and
surpassed by the deeds of this fantastic scoundrel, whose
history has remained in the memory of children under
the name of Blue Beard. Gilles de Laval, Lord of Raiz,
had indeed so black a beard that it seemed to be almost
blue, as shewn by his portrait in the Salle des Mar6chaux,
at the Museum of Versailles. A Marshal of Brittany,
he was brave because he was French ; being rich, he was
mother and brothers of Joan were made plaintiffs at Rome, and Pope
Calixtus V appointed a commission. In 1456 the commission pro-
nounced its judgment, reversing and annulling the first process on the
ground of roguery, calumny, injustice, contradictions and manifest error
in fact and law. — La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France^ vol. ii. pp. 514-
518.
272
Magic and Civilisation
also ostentatious ; and he became a sorcerer because he
was insane.^
The mental derangement of the Lord of Raiz was
manifested in the first instance by sumptuous devotion
and extravagant magnificence. When he went abroad,
he was preceded invariably by cross and banner ; his
chaplains were covered with gold and vested like prelates ;
he had a college of little pages or choristers, who were
always richly clothed. But day by day one of these
children was called before the marshal and was seen no
more by his comrades ; a newcomer succeeded him who
disappeared, and the children were sternly forbidden to
ask what became of the missing ones or even refer to
them among themselves. The children were obtained
by the marshal from poor parents, whom he dazzled by
his promises, and who were pledged to trouble no further
concerning their offspring, these, according to his stories,
being assured a brilliant future.
The explanation is that, in his case, seeming devotion
was the mask and safeguard of infamous practices.
Ruined by imbecile prodigality, the marshal desired at
any cost to create wealth. Alchemy had exhausted his
last resources and loans on usurious terms were about to
fail him ; he determined therefore to attempt the last
and most execrable experiments of Black Magic, in the
hope of obtaining gold by the aid of hell. An apostate
priest of the diocese of Saint- Male, a Florentine named
Prelati, and Sille,^ who was the marshal's steward, became
his confidants and accomplices. He had espoused a
young woman of high birth ^ and kept her practically
^ It has been suggested that the charge of sorcery covered a political
conspiracy for his destruction and was of the same value as the same
charge in respect of the Knights Templar.
^ Francesco Prelati seems to have been a magician by profession
and as regards Gilles de Sille, it is said otherwise that he was a priest
of St. Malo.
* This was Catherine de Thouars, and it was to her that the bulk of
his fortune was due. He is said to have been one of the richest nobles
in Europe.
273 S
The History of Magic
shut up in his castle at Machecoul, which had a tower
with the entrance walled up. A report was spread by
the marshal that it was in a ruinous state and no one
sought to penetrate therein. This notwithstanding,
Madame de Raiz, who was frequently alone during the
dark hours, saw red lights moving to and fro in this
tower ; but she did not venture to question her husband,
whose bizarre and sombre character filled her with extreme
terror.
On Easter Day in the year 1440,^ the marshal, having
communicated solemnly in his chapel, bade farewell to
the lady of Machecoul, telling her that he was departing
to the Holy Land ; the poor creature was even then afraid
to question, so much did she tremble in his presence ;
she was also several months in her pregnancy. The
marshal permitted her sister to come on a visit as a
companion during his absence. Madame de Raiz took
advantage of this indulgence, after which Gilles de Laval
mounted his horse and departed. To her sister Madame
de Raiz communicated her fears and anxieties. What
went on in the castle ? Why was her lord so gloomy ?
What signified his repeated absences } What became of
the children who disappeared day by day } What were
those nocturnal lights in the wallcd-up tower ? These
and the other problems excited the curiosity of both
women to the utmost degree.^ What all the same
could be done ? The marshal had forbidden them
expressly even to approach the tower, and before leaving
he had repeated this injunction. It must assuredly have
a secret entrance, for which Madame de Raiz and her
sister Anne proceeded to search through the lower
rooms of the castle, corner by corner and stone after
stone. At last, in the chapel, behind the altar, they
* It will be understood that what follows is merely romantic narra-
tive. See Gilles de Rais^ dit Barbe Bleue^ by Bossard et Maulde.
2 The account at this point represents the admixture of the Blue-
Beard or folk-element and may be read in conjunction with Perrault.
274
Magic and Civilisation
came upon a copper button, hidden in a mass of sculp-
ture. It yielded under pressure ; a stone slid back and
the two curiosity-seekers, now all in a tremble, distin-
guished the lowermost steps of a staircase, which led
them to the condemned tower.
At the top of the first flight there was a kind of
chapel, with a cross upside down and black candles ; on
the altar stood a hideous figure, no doubt representing
the demon. On the second floor they came upon fur-
naces, retorts, alembics, charcoal — in a word, all the
apparatus of alchemy. The third flight led to a dark
chamber, where the heavy and fetid atmosphere com-
pelled the young women to retreat. Madame de Raiz
came into collision with a vase, which fell over, and she
was conscious that her robe and feet were soaked by
some thick and unknown liquid. On returning to the
light at the head of the stairs she found that she was
bathed in blood.
Sister Anne would have fled from the place, but in
Madame de Raiz curiosity was even stronger than dis-
gust or fear. She descended the stairs, took a lamp
from the infernal chapel and returned to the third floor,
where a frightful spectacle awaited her. Copper vessels
filled with blood were ranged the whole length of the
walls, bearing labels with a date on each, and in the
middle of the room there was a black marble table, on
which lay the body of a child murdered quite recently.
It was one of these basins which had fallen, and black
blood had spread far and wide over the grimy and worm-
eaten wooden floor.
The two women were now half-dead with terror.
Madame de Raiz endeavoured at all costs to efl^ace the
evidence of her indiscretion. She went in search of a
sponge and water, to wash the boards ; but she only
extended the stain and that which at first seemed black
became all scarlet in hue. Suddenly a loud commotion
echoed through the castle, mixed with the cries of people
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calling to Madame de Raiz. She distinguished the awe-
striking words : ** Here is Monseigneur come back."
The two women made for the staircase, but at the same
moment they were aware of the trampling of steps and
the sound of other voices in the devil's chapel. Sister
Anne fled upwards to the battlement of the tower ;
Madame de Raiz went down trembling and found herself
face to face with her husband, in the act of ascending,
accompanied by the apostate priest and Pr^lati.
Gilles de Laval seized his wife by the arm and
without speaking dragged her into the infernal chapel.
It was then that Prelati ^ observed to the marshal : " It
is needs must, as you see, and the victim has come of
her own accord.'* . . . '' Be it so," answered his master.
** Begin the Black Mass." . . . The apostate priest went
to the altar, while Gilles de Laval opened a little cup-
board fixed therein and drew out a large knife, after
which he sat down close to his spouse, who was now
almost in a swoon and lying in a heap on a bench against
the wall. The sacrilegious ceremonies began.
It must be explained that the marshal, so far from
taking the road to Jerusalem, had proceeded only to
Nantes, where Prelati lived ; he attacked this miserable
wretch with the uttermost fury and threatened to slay him
if he did not furnish the means of extracting from the
devil that which he had been demanding for so long
a time. With the object of obtaining delay, Pr6lati
declared that terrible conditions were required by the
infernal master, first among which would be the sacrifice
of the marshal's unborn child after tearing it forcibly
from the mother's womb. Gilles de Laval made no
reply but returned at once to Machecoul, the Florentine
sorcerer and his accomplice the priest being in his train.
With the rest we are acquainted.
Meanwhile, Sister Anne, left to her own devices on
^ It does not appear that Francesco Prelati and Gilles de Sille were
brought to account subsequently.
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Magic and Civilisation
the roof of the tower and not daring to come down, had
removed her veil, to make signals of distress at chance.
They were answered by two cavaliers accompanied by a
posse of armed men, who were riding towards the castle ;
they proved to be her two brothers who, on learning the
spurious departure of the marshal for Palestine, had come
to visit and console Madame de Raiz. Soon after they
arrived with a clatter in the court of the castle, where-
upon Gilles de Laval suspended the hideous ceremony
and said to his wife : *' Madame, I forgive you, and the
matter is at an end between us if you do now as I tell
you. Return to your apartment, change your gar-
ments and join me in the guest-room, whither I am going
to receive your brothers. But if you say one word, or
cause them the slightest suspicion, I will bring you hither
on their departure ; we shall proceed with the Black Mass
at the point where it is now broken off, and at the con-
secratioti you will die. Mark where I place this knife.'*
He rose up, led his wife to the door of her chamber
and subsequently received her relations and their suite,
saying that his lady was preparing herself to come and
salute her brothers. Madame de Raiz appeared almost
immediately, pale as a spectre. Gilles de Laval never
took eyes off her, seeking to control her by his glance.
When her brothers suggested that she was ill, she an-
swered that it was the fatigue of pregnancy, but added
in an undertone : '* Save me ; he seeks to kill me." At
the same moment Sister Anne rushed mto the hall, cry-
ing : '* Take us away ; save us, my brothers : this man is
an assassin '* — and she pointed to Gilles de Laval. While
the marshal summoned his people, the escort of the two
visitors surrounded the women with drawn swords ; and
the marshal's people disarmed instead of obeying him.
Madame de Raiz, with her sister and brothers, gained the
drawbridge and left the castle.
On the morrow, Duke John V invested Machecoul,
and Gilles de Laval, who could count no longer on his
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men-at-arms, yielded without resistance.^ The parlia-
ment of Brittany had decreed his arrest as a homicide,
the ecclesiastical tribunal preparing in the first place to
pronounce judgment upon him as a heretic, sodomite
and sorcerer. Voices of parents, long silenced by terror,
rose upon all sides, demanding their missing children :
there was universal dole and clamour throughout the
province. The castles of Machecoul and Chantoc6 were
ransacked, resulting in the discovery of two hundred
skeletons of children ; the rest had been consumed by fire.
Gilles de Laval appeared with supreme arrogance
before his judges.^ To the customary question : " Who
are you ? " he answered : ** I am Gilles de Laval, Marshal
of Brittany, Lord of Raiz, Machecoul, Chantoce and
other fiefs. And who are you that dare to question
me ? " He was answered : *' We are your judges,
magistrates of the Ecclesiastical Court." — " What, you
my judges ! Go to, I know you well, my masters. You
are simoniacs and obscene fellows, who sell your God to
purchase the joys of the devil. Speak not therefore of
judging me, for if I am guilty, it is you, who owed me
good example, that are my instigators." — *' Cease your
insults, and answer us." — *' I would rather be hanged by
the neck than reply to you. I am surprised that the
president of Brittany suflFers your acquaintance with
matters of this kind. You question that you may gain
information and afterwards do worse than you have done."
But this haughty insolence was demolished by the
threat of torture.^ Before the Bishop of Saint-Brieuc
and the President Pierre de THopital, Gilles de Laval
made confession of his murders and sacrileges. He pre-
tended that his motive in the massacre of children was
^ He was really cited to appear before Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of
Nantes and Chancellor of Brittany. He obeyed this summons.
* The records say that he was insolent at the beginning but soon
changed his methods, and the confession which he made involved two of
his servants, named Henri and Poitou.
• It was the servants of Gilles de Rais who accused him under torture.
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Magic and Civilisation
an execrable delight which he sought during the agony
of these poor little beings. The president found it diffi-
cult to credit this statement and questioned him anew.
*' Alas/' said the marshal abruptly, " you torment both
yourself and me to no purpose." *' I do not torment
you," replied the president, " but I am astonished at
your words and dissatisfied. What I seek and must have
is the pure truth." The marshal answered : " Verily
there was no other cause. What more would you have ?
Surely I have admitted enough to condemn ten thou-
sand men."
That which Gilles de Laval shrank from confessing
was that he sought the Philosophical Stone in the blood
of murdered children, and that it was covetousness which
drove him to this monstrous debauchery. On the faith
of his necromancers, he believed that the universal agent
of life could be suddenly coagulated by the combined
action and reaction of outrage on Nature and murder.
He collected afterwards the iridescent film which forms
on blood as it turns cold ; ^ he subjected it to various
fermentations, digested the product in the philosophical
egg of the athanor, combining it with salt, sulphur and
mercury. He had doubtless derived his recipe from
some of those old Hebrew Grimoires which, had they
been known at the period, would have been sufficient to
call down on Jewry at large the execration of the whole
earth. Persuaded, as they were, that the act of human
impregnation attracts and coagulates the Astral Light in
its reaction by sympathy on things subjected to the mag-
* This explanation is absolutely supposititious, there being no tittle of
evidence for the existence of such a process in the records of Black
Magic. It is of course possible that some readers may ascribe secret
sources of information to Eliphas L6vi. Speaking generally, Black
Magic and the synonymous white variety were concerned little enough
in alchemical processes, good or bad. Their amateurs and adepts sought
enrichment by the discovery of buried treasures with the assistance of
demons ; they sought also to communicate with evil spirits who could
bring gold and precious stones from the mines, or who could themselves
accomplish transmutation.
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The History of Magic
netism of man, the Israelitish sorcerers had plunged into
those enormities of which Philo accuses them, as quoted
by the astrologer GafFarel.^ They caused trees to be
gr ifted by women, who inserted the graft while a man
performed on their persons those acts which are an out-
rage to Nature. Wherever Black Magic is concerned
the same horrors recur, for the spirit of darkness is not
one of invention.
Gilles de Laval was burned alive in the/>r(/ de la Mag-
deleiney near Nantes ; he obtained permission to go to
execution with all the pageantry that had accompanied
him during life, as if he wished to involve in the ignominy
of his punishment the ostentation and cupidity by which
he had been so utterly degraded and lost so fatally.^
^ It is just to say that Gaffarel wrote in defence of the Jews and to
clear them of many accusations besides those made by Philo. His
thesis was that many things were falsely imposed upon them.
* His fate was shared by the servants already mentioned, who are
said to have been his accomplices.
28c
CHAPTER VII
SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO THE DEVIL
We have borne witness to the sobriety of decisions pro-
nounced by the Church respecting the genius of evil ; she
has recommended her children not to be in fear concerning
him, not to be preoccupied about him and not even to
pronounce his name. This notwithstanding, the propen-
sity of diseased imaginations and weak minds towards the
monstrous and the horrible lent, during the evil days of
the middle ages, a formidable importance and most
portentous forms to the darksome being who deserves
nothing but oblivion, because he has rejected truth and
light for ever. This seeming realisation of the phantom
expressing perversity was an incarnation of human frenzy ;
the devil became the nightmare of cloisters, the human
mind fell a prey to its own fear and, though supposed
to be reasonable, trembled at the chimeras which it had
evoked. A black and deformed monster spread its bat-
wings between heaven and earth, to prevent youth and
life from trusting in the promises of the sun and the still
peace of the stars. This harpy of superstition poisoned
all things with its breath, infected all by its contact.
There was dread over eating and drinking lest the eggs
of the reptile should be swallowed ; to look upon beauty
was to court perhaps an illusion begotten of the monster ;
to laugh suggested the sneer of the eternal tormentor as
a funereal echo ; to weep pictured him insulting the
mourner's tears. The devil seemed to keep God im-
prisoned in heaven while he imposed blasphemy and
despair upon men on earth.
Superstitions lead quickly into absurdity and mental
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The History of Magic
alienation ; nothing is more deplorable and more irksome
than the multitudinous accounts with which popular writers
on the history of Magic have burdened their compilations.
Peter the Venerable beheld the devil leering in lavatories ;
another maker of chronicles recognised him under the
form of a cat, which, however, resembled a dog and
skipped like a monkey; a certain lord of Corasse was
served by an imp named Orthon, which appeared as a
sow, but exceedingly emaciated and indeed almost flesh-
less. The prior of St. Germain des Pres, named William
Edeline, testifies that he saw him in the form of a sheep
which, as it seemed to him must be kissed below the tail,
as a mark of reverence and honour.
Wretched old women confessed that he had been
their lover; the marshal Trivulce died of terror, while
protecting himself by cut and thrust against the devils
swarming in his room. Hundreds of wretched idiots
and fools were burnt on admitting their former commerce
with the malignant spirit ; rumours of incuhi and succuhi
were heard on all sides ; judges deliberated gravely on
revelations which should have been referred to doctors ;
moreover, they were actuated by the irresistible pressure
of public opinion, and indulgence towards sorcerers would
have exposed magistrates themselves to all the popular
fury. The persecution of fools made folly contagious
and the maniacs tore one another to pieces ; people were
beaten to death, burnt by slow fire, plunged into icy water
in the hope of compelling them to break the spells which
they had cast, while justice intervened only to complete
on the stake what had begun in the blind rage of the
multitude.
In recounting the history of Gilles de Laval we have
indicated sufficiently that Black Magic may be not only a
real crime but the gravest of all offences ; unfortunately
the method of the times confused the diseased with male-
factors and punished those who should have been cared for
with patience and charity.
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Magic and Civilisation
At what point does man's responsibility begin and at
what point does it end ? The problem is one which may
well disturb frequently the virtuous depositories of human
justice. Caligula, son of Germanicus, appeared to have
inherited all the virtues of his father, but his reason was
distracted by poison and he became the terror of the
world. Was he in reality guilty, and ought not his
crimes to be laid at the doors of those base Romans who
obeyed instead of imprisoning him }
Father Hilarion Tissot, who has been mentioned pre-
viously, goes further than ourselves and would include
even voluntary crime in the category of madness, but
unfortunately he explains madness itself as obsession of the
evil spirit. We might ask this good ecclesiastic what he
would think of the father of a family who after shutting
his door on a wrstrel known to be capable of every kind
of evil, should give him leave to frequent, advise, abduct
and obsess his own little children? Let us therefore
admit, so as to be truly Christian, that the devil, whom-
soever he may be, obsesses only those who give themselves
voluntarily to him, and that such are responsible for every-
thing which he may prompt them to do, even as a drunken
man is held liable rightly for the disorders of which he
may be guilty under the influence of drink. Drunken-
ness is a transient madness and madness is a permanent
intoxication ; both are caused by a phosphoric congestion
of the cerebral nerves, which destroys our etheric equili-
brium and deprives the soul of its instrument of precision.
The spiritual and personal soul then resembles Moses
bound and swaddled in his cradle of rushes, and aban-
doned to the rocking of the Nile waters. It is carried
away by the fluidic and material soul of the world, that
mysterious water over which the Elohim brooded, when
the Divine Word was formulated by the luminous
sentence : Let there be light.
The soul of the world is a force which tends auto-
matically to equilibrium ; either will must predominate
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The History of Magic
over it or it conquers the will. It is tormented by any
incomplete life, as if this were a monstrosity, and it strives
therefore to absorb intellectual abortions. Hence maniacs
and hallucinated people experience an irresistible yearning
for destruction and death ; annihilation seems to them a
blessing, and they would not only attain death on their
own part but would delight in witnessing that of others.
They realise that life is escaping them ; consciousness
stings and even goads them to despair ; their very exist-
ence is a perception of death, and it is hell-torment. One
hears an imperious voice commanding him to kill his son
in the cradle. He struggles, he weeps, he flees, but ends
by taking a hatchet and slaying the child. Another,
and this terrible story is a thing of recent occurrence, is
driven by voices crying for hearts ; he beats his parents
to death, opens their breasts, tears out their hearts and
begins to devour them. Whosoever of his free will is
guilty of an evil action offers by that fact an earnest to
eternal destruction and cannot foresee whither this fatal
bargain will lead him.
Being is substance and life ; life manifests by move-
ment ; movement is perpetuated by equilibrium ; equili-
brium is therefore the law of immortality. Conscience is
the awareness of equilibrium, which is equity and justice.
All excess, when it is not mortal, is corrected by an
opposite excess ; it is the eternal law of reaction ; but if
excess subverts all equilibrium it is lost in the outer
darkness and becomes eternal death.
The soul of the earth carries with it in the vertigo of
astral movement all which oflFers no resistance in virtue of
the equilibrated forces of reason. Wherever an imperfect
and ill-formed life manifests, this soul directs its energies
to destroy it, just as vitality pours in to heal wounds.
Hence the atmospheric disorders which occur in the
neighbourhood of certain diseased persons, hence fluidic
commotions, the automatic movement of tables, levita-
tions, stone-throwing, and the visible and tangible projec-
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Magic and Civilisation
tion of astral hands and feet by obsessed persons. It is
Nature at work on a cancer which it is trying to extirpate,
on a wound which it seeks to close, or on some viampire
whose death is desired, that it may revert to the common
source of life.
The spontaneous movement of inert objects can
result only from the operation of forces which magnetise
the earth ; a spirit, or in other words, a thought can raise
nothing in the absence of a lever. Were it otherwise,
the— so to speak — infinite toil of Nature for the creation
and perfecting of organs would be without an object.
If the spirit freed from the senses could render matter
obedient to its will, the illustrious dead would be the
first to manifest in accordance with order and harmony,
but in place of this there are only incoherent and feverish
activities produced about diseased and capricious beings.
These are irregular magnets which derange the soul of
the earth ; but when the earth is in delirium through
the eruption of such abortive beings, it is because it is
passing through a crisis on its own part, and through one
which will end in violent commotions.
There is extraordinary puerility in some who pass
for serious. There is for example the Marquis de
Mirville,^ who refers all inexplicable phenomena to the
devil. But, my dear Sir, if the devil could intervene in
the natural order, would he not demolish everything ?
By the hypothesis concerning his character, scruples
could scarcely influence him. You will reply that God's
power restrains, and that it does or does not is obvious ;
but on the first supposition the devil is rendered im-
potent, while on the second it is he who is master.
M. de Mirville might say further that God suffers him
^ The Marquis Eudes de Mirville wrote Des Esprits et de leurs
Manifestations Fluidiques devant la Science Moderne^ 1858, and other
large books, which were highly recommended by ecclesiastical authority
of the day. He saw the intervention of Satanism everywhere in psychic
and occult phenomena. Remove the personality of Satan and Eliphas L^vi
says exactly the same thing.
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The History of Magic
z little while. Does he mean just enough to deceive
poor men, just enough to puzzle their heads, so wooden
already — as is known ? In this alternative it is no longer
the devil who is master ; it is rather God Who is — but
no, one dares not continue : to go further would be to
blaspheme.
We do not understand properly the harmonies of
being, which follow an ordered sequence, as the illus-
trious maniac Fourier well said. The spirit acts upon
spirits by means of the Word ; matter receives the
imprints of spirit and communicates therewith by means
of a perfect organism. Harmony in forms is related
to harmony in ideas, and the light is the common
mediator. Light is spirit and life ; it is the synthesis
of colours, the accord of shadows, the harmony of
forms ; and its vibrations are living mathematics. But
darkness and its phantastic illusions, the phosphorescent
errors of slumber and words spoken in delirium — all
these create nothing, realise nothing and in a word do
not exist. Such things belong to the limbus of life, are
vapours of astral intoxication and delusions of tired eyes.
To follow these will o' the wisps is to walk in a blind
alley ; to believe in their revelations is to worship death :
such is Nature's testimony.
Incoherence and abuse are the only messages of table-
turning; they are echos of the low-life deeps of thought,
absurd and anarchic dreams, words which the scum of
the people make use of to express defiance. There is
a book by Baron de Guldenstubbe,^ who pretends to
conduct a correspondence with the other world. He
has had answers, and such answers — obscene sketches,
despairing hieroglyphics and the following Greek signa-
ture, TTvevjULa Odvarog, which may be translated " spirit of
* The reference is to La Rialiid des Esprits et le Phenomlne Merveil-
leux de leur J^criture Directe. It appeared in 1857 and is a very curious
collection of materials. Long after, or in 1875, the same writer published
Lm Morale Universelle^ which seems to be a plea for secular education.
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Magic and Civilisation
death." Such is the last word of the phenomenal
revelations according to American doctrine ; such is
doctrine itself in separation from sacerdotal authority
and in the attempt to establish it independently of
hierarchic control. The reality and importance of the
phenomena, the good faith of those who believe them,
are in no sense denied ; but we must warn all who
are concerned against the dangers to which they are
liable if they do not prefer the spirit of wisdom,
communicated divinely and hierarchically to the Church,
before all these disorderly and obscure messages, in
which the fluidic soul of the earth reflects automatically
the mirage of intelligence and the dreams of slumbering
reason.
287
BOOK V
THE ADEPTS AND THE PRIESTHOOD
BOOK V
THE ADEPTS AND THE PRIESTHOOD
n— HE
CHAPTER I
PRIESTS AND POPES ACCUSED OF MAGIC
We have explained that owing to the profanations and
impieties of Gnostics the Church proscribed Magic. The
condemnation of the Knights Templar completed the
rupture, and from this time forward, compelled to seek
concealment and plan revenge in the shadows, Magic
ostracised the Church in turn. More prudent than
those arch-heretics who opposed altar to altar in public
day, and thus entailed denunciation and the headsman's
axe on themselves, the adepts dissimulated their resent-
ment as well as their doctrines. They bound themselves
together by dreadful oaths and, realising the importance
of first securing a favourable view at the tribunal of
public opinion, they turned back on their accusers and
judges the sinister rumours by which they were pursued
themselves and denounced the priesthood to the people
as a school of Black Magic.
So long as his convictions and beliefs are not rooted
in the irremovable foundation of reason, man ardently
and indifferently desires both truth and falsehood ; on
either side he finds that there are cruel reactions. Who
shall put an end to this warfare.? Only the spirit of
Him who has said : '* Render not evil for evil, but
overcome evil by good.'*
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The History of Magic
The Catholic priesthood has been charged with the
spirit of persecution, though its mission is that of the
good Samaritan, for which reason it superseded the
unpitying Levites who continued their way without
extending compassion to him who had fallen among
thieves. It is in the exercise of humanity that priests
prove their Divine consecration. Hence it is a supreme
injustice to cast upon sacerdotalism at large the crimes
or certain men who are unfortunately sealed with the
priesthood. For a man, as such, it is always possible
to be wicked ; but a true priest is, on the contrary,
always charitable. Now, the false adepts did not look
at the question from this standpoint ; ^ for them the
Christian priesthood was made void and was hence an
usurping power since the proscription of the Gnostics.
What, said they, is a hierarchy whose degrees are
no longer regulated by conscience } The same ignor-
ance of the Mysteries and the same blind faith drive
into the same fanaticism or the same hypocrisy the
prime leaders and lowest ministers of the sanctuary.
The blind are leaders of the blind. The supremacy
between equals is no longer anything but the result of
intrigue and chance. The pastors consecrate the sacred
elements with a gross and disordered faith ; they are
jugglers in bread and eaters of human flesh; they are
no longer thaumaturgists but sorcerers. Such was the
sectarian yerdict. To support the calumny they invented
fables, affirming for example that the popes had been
given over to the spirit of darkness ever since the tenth
century. The learned Gerbert, who was crowned as
Sylvester II, made confession — as it is said — to this effect
on his death-bed. Honorius III, being he who confirmed
the Order of St. Dominic and preached the Crusades, was
^ The reader should understand that Eliphas Levi is only giving
expression to a point of view ; it must not be supposed that there were
adepts — either true or false — who said or thought the things which are
here set down at the period in question, or indeed at any other period.
292
The Adepts and the Priesthood
himself an abominable necromancer, author of a Grimoire
which still bears his name and is reserved exclusively to
priests. The same false adepts paraded and commented
on this Grimoire, seeking in such manner to turn against
the Holy See the most terrible of all popular prejudices
at that period — the mortal hatred of those who, wrongly
or rightly, passed publicly for sorcerers.
Some malevolent or credulous historians have favoured
these lying inventions. Thus Platina, a scandalous
chronicler of the papacy, reproduces from Martinus
Polonus the calumnies against Sylvester II. According
to this fable, Gerbert, who was proficient in mathematical
science and the Kabalah, performed an evocation of the
devil and required his assistance to attain the pontificate.
The fulfilment of his ambition was not only promised by
the demon but it was aflfirmed further that he should
not die except at Jerusalem, to which place it will be
understood readily that the magician determined inwardly
that he would never go. He became pope as promised,
but on a certain day, when he was saying Mass in a
church at Rome, he felt seriously ill and remembering
suddenly that the chapel wherein he was officiating was
dedicated to the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, he realised
what had come to pass. He caused a bed to be put
up in the chapel and, summoning his cardinals, confessed
publicly that he had engaged in commerce with demons.
He ordained further that his dead body should be placed
upon a chariot of green wood and should be drawn by
two virgin horses, one black and the other white ; that
they should be started on their course but neither led
nor driven ; and that his remains should be interred
wherever a halt was made. The chariot proceeded in
this manner across Rome and stopped in front of the
Lateran. Loud cries and groans were heard for a few
moments, after which there was silence and the burial
took place. So ends a legend the proper place of which
is in the hawker's chap-books.
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The History of Magic
Martinus Polonus, on the faith of whom Platina
repeats such reveries, had borrowed them on his own
part (a) from a certain Galfridus and (b) from Gervaise,
a maker of chronicles, whom Naud6 terms *' the greatest
forger of fables and the most notorious liar that ever
took pen in hand." From sources of similar value the
protestants have derived a scandalous and obviously
apocryphal story concerning a pretended Pope Joan, who
was also a sorceress, as we have all heard : indeed she is
one to whom books on Black Magic are still attributed.
We have glanced at a memoir of this female pope by
a protestant historian and have taken note of two very
curious engravings contained therein. They are assumed
to be portraits of the heroine but are in reality ancient
Tarots, representing Isis crowned with a tiara. It is
well known that the hieroglyphic figure on the second
Tarot card is still called the female pope, being a woman
wearing a tiara on which are the points of the crescent
moon, or the horns of Isis. One example in the pro-
testant book is even more remarkable ; the hair of the
figure is long and scanty ; there is a solar cross on the
breast ; she is seated between the two pillars of Hercules :
and behind her flows the ocean, with lotus-flowers bloom-
ing on the surface of the water. The second portrait
represents the same divinity, with attributes of the sove-
reign priesthood and holding her son Horus in her arms.
As Kabalistic documents, the two pictures are of singular
value, but they are little to the purpose of those who
are concerned with Pope Joan.
To dispose of the accusation of sorcery in respect
of Gerbert, supposing that it could be taken seriously,
it would be enough to mention that he was the most
learned man of his century and having been preceptor
of two sovereigns, he owed his election to the gratitude
of one of his august pupils. He had extraordinary pro-
ficiency in mathematics, and his knowledge of physics
may have exceeded that of his epoch ; in a word, he was
294
The Adepts and the Priesthood
'\ man of universal erudition and great ability, as the
letters which he left bear witness, though he was not
a denouncer of kings like the terrible Hildebrand. He
chose to instruct princes rather than excommunicate them,
and enjoying the favour of two French kings and three
emperors, he had no need, as Naud6 has judiciously
pointed out, to sell himself to the devil for the arch-
bishoprics of Rheims and Ravenna, or for the papacy in
succession to these. It is true that he attained the suc-
cessive positions, to some extent in spite of his merit;
it was an age when able politicians were taken for
possessed people and those who were learned for en-
chanters. Gerbert was not only a great mathematician,
as we have said, and a distinguished astronomer, but
he excelled also in mechanics, and — according to William
of Malmesbury — he erected at Rheims such wonderful
hydraulic machines that the water itself executed sym-
phonies and played most enchanting airs. Moreover,
according to Ditmare, he adorned the town of Magde-
bourg with a clock which registered all the motions of
heaven and the times when the stars rose and set. Finally,
by the evidence of Naud6,^ whom we cite once again
with pleasure, he made "that test of brass which was
devised so ingeniously that the before-mentioned William
of Malmesbury was himself deceived thereby and referred
it to Magic. Further, Onuphrius states that he saw in
the Farncse library a learned book on geometry com-
posed by this same Gerbert ; and for myself I estimate
that, without adjudicating on the opinion expressed by
Erfordiensis and some others, who regard him as the
maker of timepieces and of arithmetic as these exist
now among us, all these evidences arc sufficiently valid
to warrant the conclusion that those who had never
heard of cube, parallelogram, dodecahedron, almicantar,
valsagora, almagrippa, cathalzem and other names,
^ See Gabriel Naud6 ; Apologie pour les Grands Hommes fausse-
tnent accuses de la Magie,
295
The History of Magic
familiar enough in these days to such as understand
mathematics, conceived that they were those of the
spirits invoked by Gerbert and that such a multitude
of things so rare could not emanate from a single
personality in the absence of extraordinary advantages,
from the possession of which it followed therefore that
he must have been a magician."
To indicate the lengths of impertinence and bad
faith reached by makers of chronicles, it remains to say
that Platina ^ — that maliciously na'lve echo of all Roman
pasquinades — affirms that the tomb of Sylvester II itself
turned sorcerer, weeping prophetically at the approaching
downfall of each pope and that the reprobate bones of
Gerbert shook and rattled together when one of them
was about to die. An epitaph engraved on the tomb
lends colour to these wonders — so adds unblushingly the
librarian of Sixtus IV. Such are the proofs which pass
among historians as sufFcient to certify the existence of
a curious historical document. Platina was librarian of
the Vatican ; he wrote his history of the popes by order
of Sixtus IV ; he wrote also at Rpme, where nothing
could be easier than to verify the truth or falsehood of
such an assertion, which notwithstanding the pretended
epitaph never existed outside the imagination of the
authors from whom Platina borrowed with incredible
lack of caution ^ — a circumstance which moves justly
the indignation of honest Naude, whose further remarks
shall follow : ** It is a pure imposture and manifest false-
hood, both in respect of the experience — being the pre-
tended prodigies at the tomb of Sylvester II — the same
having never been witnessed by anyone — and of the
alleged inscription on the tomb, that inscription — as it
exists really — having been composed by Sergius IV and
* Bartholemaeus Platina was assistant-librarian of the Vatican, and
his Opus in Vitas Sumniorum Pontijicum appeared at Venice in 1479,
two years before his death.
* " Let the popes see to it," he remarks, according to a Note of L6vi ;
" it is they who are concerned in the question."
296
The Adepts and the Priesthood
so far from supporting the supposed magical fables, is,
on the contrary, one of the most excellent testimonies
that could be desired to the good life and integrity of
Sylvester. It is truly a shameful thing that so many
catholics should be abettors of a slander concerning which
Marianus Scotus, Glaber, Ditmarc, Helgandus, Lambert
and Herman Contract, who were his contemporaries, make
no mention."
Proceeding now to the Grimoire of Honorius, it is
to the third bearer of that name, or to one of the most
zealous pontiffs of the 13th century, that this im-
pious book is attributed. Assuredly Honorius III was
eminently likely to be hated by sectarians and necro-
mancers, and well might they seek to dishonour him by
representing him as their accomplice. Censius Savelli,
crowned pope in 12 16, confirmed that Order of Saint
Dominic which proved so formidable to Albigensians and
Vaudois — those children of Manicheans and sorcerers.
He established also the Franciscans and Carmelites,
preached a crusade, governed the Church wisely and
left many decretals. To charge with Black Magic a
pope so eminently catholic ^ is to cast similar suspicion
on the great religious orders which he instituted, »and
the devil thereby could scarcely fail to profit.
Some old copies of the Grimoire of Honorius bear,
however, the name of Honorius II, but it is impossible
to make a sorcerer of that elegant Cardinal Lambert
who, after his promotion to the sovereign pontificate,
surrounded himself either with poets, to whom he gave
bishoprics for elegies — as in the case of Hildebert, Bishop
of Mans — or with learned theologians, like Hugh de
^ Eliphas L^vi, in his defence of the Catholic Religion, by which he
means that of Rome, reminds one of Talleyrand proceeding to consecrate
and entreating his familiars about him not to make him laugh : in the
symbolic language of the man in the street, his tongue is so evidently
in his cheek. An open enemy of Rome would think twice before saying
that the pope who authorised the instruments which were used in the
execrable massacres of Albigensians and Vaudois was " so eminently
catholic."
297
The History of Magic
Saint-Victor. But it so happens that the name of
Honorius II is for us as a ray of light pointing to the
true author of the frightful grimoire in question/ In
1 06 1, when the empire began to take umbrage against
the papacy and sought to usurp the sacerdotal influence
by fomenting troubles and divisions in the sacred college,
the bishops of Lombardy, impelled by Gilbert of Parma,
protested against the election of Anselm, Bishop of
Lucca, who had been raised to the papal chair as Alex-
ander II. The Emperor Henry IV took the part of
the dissentients and authorised them to elect another
pope, promising to support them. They chose Cadulus
or Cadalus, an intriguing Bishop of Parma, a man capable
of all crimes and a public scandal in respect of simony
and concubinage. He assumed the name of Honorius II
and marched at the head of an army against Rome.
He was defeated and condemned by all the prelates of
Germany and Italy. Returning to the charge, he gained
possession of part of the Holy City and entered St.
Peter's ; he was expelled and took refuge in the Castle
of St. Angelo, whence he only obtained leave to retire
on the payment of a heavy ransom. It was then that
Otho, Archbishop of Cologne, the Emperor's envoy,
dared to reproach Alexander II in public for having
usurped the Holy See ; but a monk named Hildebrand
took up the cause of the lawful pontiff^ with such force
of eloquence that the Emperor drew back in confusion
and asked pardon for his own criminal attempts. The
Hildebrand in question was already in the sight of pro-
vidence that fulminating Gregory VII who was to come
and who thus inaugurated the work of his life. The
anti-pope was deposed by the Council of Mantua and
Henry IV obtained his pardon. Cadalus returned into
obscurity and it is then probably that he decided to
* I refer the readers of this section to my Book of Ceremonial Magic^
where the content and history of this Grimoire are considered with
special reference to the criticism of Eliphas Levi.
298
OCCULT SEALS AND PRIMITIVE EGYPTIAN TAROTS
Facing p. 298
T*he Adepts and the Priesthood
become the high priest of sorcerers and apostates, in
which capacity, and under the name of Honorius II, he
composed the Grimoire that passes under this name/
What is known of the anti-pope's character lends
colour to an accusation of the kind ; he was daring in
the presence of the weak, grovelling in that of the strong,
debauched and intriguing, devoid of faith and morals,
seeing nothing in religion but an engine of impunity and
rapine. For such a person, the Christian virtues were
obstacles and faith in the clergy was a difficulty which
had to be overcome ; he would therefore make priests
after his own heart, or capable, that is to say, of all
crimes and sacrileges. Now, this would seem to have
been the purpose in chief of the Grimoire called that
of Honorius.
The work in question is not without importance for
those who are curious in the science. V^ appears at first
sight to be a mere tissue of revolting absurdities,^ but for
those who are initiated in the signs and secrets of the
Kabalah, it is literally a monument of human perversity,
for the devil appears therein as an instrument of power.
To utilise human credulity and to turn the bugbear
which dominates it to the account of the adept and his
caprices — such is the secret of the work. It aspires to
make darkness darker before the eyes of the multitude
by usurping the torch of science, which at need, and in
bold hands, may become that of butchers and incendi-
aries. To identify faith with servitude, reserving power
^ I have mentioned in the Book of Ceremonial Magic that the first
edition of the Grimoire of Honorius is referred to 1629, being about 900
years after the death of its alleged author. I have also referred it to
its proper source in the Sworn Book of Honorius^ which belongs to the
fourteenth century. The Honorius here in question was the spokesman
of magicians assembled at a mythical place. He is described as the
son of Euclid and Master of the Thebans.
^ This is another way of stating that it is precisely of the same char-
acter as the Key of Solomon the King^ the Keys of Rabbi Solomon and
the Magical Elements of Peter de AbanOj which correspond to the
description given,
299
The History of Magic
and liberty for oneself, is indeed to imagine the reign of
Satan on earth, and it should not be surprising if the
authors of such a conspiracy against public good sense
and religion should hope to manifest and, in a sense, to
incarnate on earth the fantastic sovereign of the evil
empire.
The doctrine of this Grimoire is the same as that
of Simon and the majority of the Cnosdcs: it is the
substitution ^ of the passive for the active principle. A
pantacle which forms a frontispiece to the work gives
expression to this doctrine, being passion as predominant
over reason, sensualism deified and the woman in priority
to the man, a tendency which recurs in all antichristian
mystic systems. The crescent moon of Isis occupies the
centre of the figure and it is encompassed by three
triangles, one within another. The triangle is sur-
mounted by a crux ansata with double cross-bar. It is
inscribed within a circle and within the space formed by
the three segments of the circle there is on one side the
sign of the spirit and the Kabalistic seal of Solomon, on
the others the magic knife and the initial letter of the
binary, below a reversed cross forming the figure of the
lingam, and the name of God i'K = AL, also reversed.
About the circle is written: ''Obey your superiors
and be subject unto them, for they will see that you
do."^
Rendered into a symbol or profession of faith, this
pantacle is therefore textually as follows : — Fatality reigns
by virtue of mathematics, and there is no other God than
Nature. Dogmas are aids to sacerdotal power and are
imposed on the multitude to justify sacrifices. The
* The Grimoire is, on the contrary, a Ritual for the evocation of evil
spirits and, granting only the legality of this operation, it is conform-
aole in all respects to the doctrine of the Latin Church. Now, it is idle
to say that this Church substitutes the passive for the active principle,
the cultus of the Blessed Virgin notwithstanding.
* I am not acquainted with this frontispiece, but I have seen a copy
having a design on the title-page representing the sun within an inverted
triangle.
300
The Adepts and the Priest hooa
initiate is above any religion and makes use of all, but
that which he says is the antithesis of that which he
believes. The law of obedience prescribes and does not
explain ; initiates are made to command and those who
are profane to obey.
All who have studied the occult sciences know that
the old magicians never expressed their doctrine in
writing but formulated it by the symbolical characters
of pantacles. On the second page of the book there
are two circular magical seals. In the first is the square
of the Tetragram with an inversion and substitution
of names. Instead of n>n« = EiEiE; nin^ = jEHOVAH ;
^j-,{< = ADONAi ; kS3k = agla — the four sacred words sig-
nifying : ^ The Absolute Being is Jehovah, the Lord in
Three Persons, God and the hierarchy of the Churchy the
author of the Grimoire has substituted : nin% jehovah ;
^iHN, ADNi ; ")K"n, D*RAR ; H^HN, EiEiE — which signifies :
Jehovah, the Lord, is none other than the fatal principle
of eternal rebirth, personified by this same rebirth in
the Absolute Being.
About the square within the circle is the name of
Jehovah in its proper form, but also reversed ; on the
left is that of Adonai and on the right are the three
letters in«, achv, followed by two points, the whole
meaning : Heaven and hell are each the reflection of
each ; that which is above is as that which is below ; God
is humanity — humanity being expressed by the letters
achv, which are the initials of Adam and Eve.^
On the second seal is the name Nnn^nx, ararita,
and below it is K^t^-i, rash, encircling twenty-six Kabalistic
^ This exegesis is personal to Eliphas L6vi and has no authority in
Kabalism, as there is no need to say, seeing that the Secret Tradition
in Jewry did not maintain the hierarchy of the Latin Church. In the
Zohar, Adonai is a title of Shekinah^ as already stated.
"^ On the assumption of course that the \t.\.\.tx Aleph stands for Adam,
while CAe//i and Vau are the first letters in the name of Evs. The
interpretation throughout is of the same value and Eliphas Levi was not
more serious in expressing it than I am in translating it. The Grimoire
of Honorius is no such abyss of decorative philosophical iniquity.
301
The History of Magic
characters. Below the seal are ten Hebrew letters, given
in the following order: m-nnniD n^ The whole is a
formula of materialism and fatality, which is too long,
and, it may be, too perilous for explanation in this place.
The prologue of the Grimoire comes next in order and
may be given at full length.^
"The Holy Apostolic Chair, unto which the Keys
of the Kingdom of Heaven are given by those words
that Christ Jesus addressed to St. Peter : I give unto
thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and unto
thee alone the power of commanding the Prince of
Darkness and his angels, who, as slaves to their master,
do owe him honour, glory and obedience, by virtue of
those other words of Christ Jesus, addressed to Satan
himself: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
Him only shalt thou serve — hence by the power of these
Keys the Head of the Church has been made the Lord
of hell. But seeing that until this present the Sove-
reign Pontiffs have alone had the charge of evoking and
commanding Spirits, His Holiness Honorius II, being
moved by his pastoral care, has desired benignly to
communicate the science and power of evocations and
of empire over spirits to his venerable Brethren in Jesus
Christ, with the conjurations which must be used in
such case ; now therefore the whole is contained in the
Bull which here follows."
Here in all truth is the pontificate of hell, that
sacrilegious priesthood of anti-popes which Dante seems
to stigmatise in the raucous cry uttered by one of his
princes of perdition : Fope Satan^ Pope Satan : Aleppe,
Let the legitimate pontiff continue as prince of heaven ;
it is enough for the anti-pope Cadalus to be the
sovereign of hell. '* Be He the God of good, for
god of evil am I ; we are divided, but my power is
equal."
^ I have used the translation made tram the Grimoire itself, pub-
lished in my Book of Ceremonial MagiCy p. 107.
302
The Adepts and the Priesthood
The Bull of the infernal pontiff follows/ and the
mystery of darksome evocations is expounded therein
with a terrific knowledge concealed under superstitious
and sacrilegious forms. Fastings, watchings, profanation
of mysteries, allegorical ceremonies and bloody sacrifices
are combined with artful malice. The evocations are not
deficient in poetry or in enthusiasm, mingled with horror.
For example, the author ordains that an operator should
rise at midnight on the Thursday in the first week of
evocations, should sprinkle his room with holy water
and light a taper of yellow wax — prepared on the previous
day and pierced in the form of a cross. By the uncertain
light of this candle, he must enter a church alone and
read the Office of the Dead in a low voice, substituting
in place of the ninth lesson at Matins the following
rhythmic invocation which is here translated from the
Latin, preserving its strange form and its refrains, which
recall the monotonous incantations of old-world sorcerers.
0 Lord, deliver me from the infernal terrors,
Exempt my spirit from sepulchral larvae ;
To seek them out I shall go down to their hell unaffrighted :
1 shall impose my will for a law upon them.
I will call upon night and its darkness to bring forth splendour :
Rise up, O Sun \ and, Moon, be thou white and brilliant ;
To the shades of hell I will speak and confess no terror :
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
Dreadful in aspect are they, their forms in appearance fantastic :
I will that the demons shall once again become angels.
Whence to their nameless distortion I speak, never fearing :
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
These shades are illusions evoked by the eye affrighted ;
I and I only can heal their loveliness blasted.
And into the deeps of hell I plunge unaffrighted :
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.^
^ It affirms that the power to command demons is resident in the
Seat of Peter and then proceeds to communicate that power by dispensa-
tion to "venerable brethren and dear sons in Jesus Christ," being those
comprised in the ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
* It must be explained that the oration in the Grimoire is not rhythmic,
but the " when I shall impose my will upon them " recurs several times,
303
The History of Magic
After many other ceremonies there comes the night
of evocation. In a sinister place, in the light of a fire
kindled with broken crosses, a circle is traced with the
embers of a cross, reciting while so doing a magical
hymn containing versicles of several psalms. It may
be rendered as follows : ^
*' O Lord, the king rejoices in Thy power ; let me
finish the work of my birth. May shadows of evil and
spectres of night be as dust blown before the wind. . . .
0 Lord, hell is enlightened and shines in Thy presence ;
by Thee do all things end and all begin by Thee :
Jehovah, Tsabaoth, Elohim, Eloi, Helion, Helios,
JoDHEVAH, Shaddai. The Lion of Judah rises in His
glory ; He comes to complete the victory of King David.
1 open the seven seals of the dread book. Satan falls
from heaven, like summer lightning. Thou hast said
to me : Be far from thee hell and its tortures ; they shall
not draw to thy pure abodes. Thine eyes shall with-
stand the gaze of the basilisk ; thy feet shall walk
fearlessly on the asp ; thou shalt take up serpents, and
they shall be conquered by thy smile ; thou shalt drink
poisons, and they shall in nowise hurt thee. Elohim,
Elohab, Tsabaoth, Helios, Ehyeh, Eieazereie,
O Theos, Tsehyros. The earth is the Lord's and
the fulness thereof; He hath established it over the
gaping abyss. Who shall go up unto the mountain of
the Lord .? The innocent of hands and clean of heart ;
he who hath not held truth in captivity, nor hath
received it to let it remain idle ; he who hath con-
ceived the height in his soul and hath not sworn by a
lying word. The same shall receive strength for his
literally or in substance. In this manner ^liphas L6vi gets the refrain
of his verses : Je leur imposerai ma volontd pour lot. His metrical
rendering is well conceived and executed.
^ I have rendered in prose that which is given by L6vi in verse, which
is anything but in the words of the Ritual. Compare my translation of
the prayer taken from the Grimoire in the Book of Ceremonial Magic ^
pp. 280-282.
304
The Adepts and the Priesthood
domain, and hereof is the infinite of human birth, genera-
tion by earth and fire, the divine bringing forth of those who
seek God. Princes of Nature, enlarge your doors ; yoke
of heaven, I lift thee. Come to me, ye holy cohorts :
behold the King of glory. He hath earned his name ;
he holds in his hand the seal of Solomon. The master
hath broken the black bondage of Satan and hath led
captivity captive. The Lord alone is God, and He only
is King. To Thee only be glory, O Lord ; glory and
glory to Thee." ^
One seems to hear the sombre puritans of Walter
Scott or Victor Hugo accompanying, with fanatic
psalmody, the nameless work of sorcerers in Faust or
Macbeth,
In a conjuration addressed to the shade of the giant
Nimrod, the wild huntsman who began the Tower of
Babel, the adept of Honorius menaces that ancient
reprobate with the riveting of his chains and with torture
increased daily, should he fail in immediate obedience to
the will of the operator. It is the sublimity of pride in
delirium, and this anti-pope, who could only understand
a high-priest as a ruler of hell, seems to yearn after the
usurped and mournful right of tormenting the dead
eternally, as if in revenge for the contempt and rejection
of the living.
^ The Ritual proceeds to the conjuration of the Kings presiding in
the four quarters of heaven and the evil angels who rule over the days of
the week.
305
CHAPTER II
APPEARANCE OF THE BOHEMIAN NOMADS
At the beginning of the fifteenth century hordes of
unknown swarthy wanderers began to spread through
Europe.^ Sometimes denominated Bohemians, because
they claimed to come from Bohemia, sometimes Egyp-
tians, because their leader assumed the title of Duke of
Egypt, they exercised the arts of divination, larceny and
marauding. They were nomadic tribes, bivouacking in
huts of their own construction ; their religion was un-
known ; they gave themselves out to be Christians ; but
their orthodoxy was more than doubtful. Among them-
selves, they practised communism and promiscuity, and
in their divinations they made use of a strange sequence
of signs, allegorical in form, and depending from the vir-
tues of numbers. Whence came they ? Of what accursed
and vanished world were they the surviving waifs ?
Were they, as superstitious people believed, the off-
spring of sorceresses and demons ? What expiring and
betrayed Saviour had condemned them to roam for ever ^
Was this the family at large of the Wandering Jew, or
the remnants of the ten tribes of Israel, lost sight of in
captivity and long enchained by Gog and Magog in un-
known regions ? Such were the doubting questions at
the passage of these mysterious strangers, who seemed
to retain only the superstitions and vices of a vanished
civilisation. Enemies of toil, they respected neither
property nor family ; they dragged their women and
children after them ; they pestered the peace of honest
^ The presence of the gipsies in Europe can be traced prior to the
fifteenth century.
The Adepts and the Priesthood
house-dwellers with their pretended divinations. How-
ever all this may be, their first encampment in the
vicinity of Paris is told by one writer as follows : —
** In the next year, 1427, on the Sunday after the
middle of August, being the 17th of the month, there
came to the Environs of Paris twelve so-called peni-
tentiaries— a duke, earl and ten men, all on horses, saying
that they were good Christians, originally of Lower
Egypt. They stated further that in former times they
were conquered and turned to Christianity, those refusing
being put to death, while those who consented to
baptism were left as rulers of the country. Some time
subsequently the Saracens invaded them, and many who
were not firm in the faith made no attempt to withstand
or defend their country, as in duty bound, but submitted,
became Saracens and abjured our Saviour. The Emperor
of Germany, the King of Poland and other rulers having
learned that the people renounced their faith so easily,
becoming Saracens and idolaters, fell upon them and con-
quered them again easily. It appeared at first as if they
had the intention to leave them in their country, so that
they might be led back to Christianity, but, after delibera-
tion in council, the emperor and the rest of the kings
ordained that they should never own land in their native
country without the consent of the Pope, to obtain which,
they must journey to Rome. Thither they proceeded in a
great body, the young and the old, involving great suffering
for the little ones. They made confession of their sins at
Rome, and the Pope, after considering with his advisers,
imposed on them, by way of penance, a seven years*
wandering through the world, sleeping in no bed. He
ordained further that every bishop and croziered abbot
should give them, once and for all, ten livres of the
Tours currency as a contribution towards their expenses.
He presented them with letters to this effect, gave them
his benediction, and for five years they had been wandering
through the world.
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The History of Magic
" Some days afterwards, being the day of the martyrdom
of St. John the Baptist, or August 29, the general horde
followed and were not permitted to e 'ter within Paris,
but were lodged at the Chapelle St. Denis. They
numbered about 120 persons, including women and
children. They stated that when they left their own
country they consisted of one thousand or twelve hundred
souls ; the others had died on the road, their king and
queen among them ; the survivors were still expecting
to become possessors of worldly goods, for the holy
father had promised them good and fertile lands when
their penance was finished.
*' While they were at the chapel there was never so great
a crowd at benediction, for the people flocked to see them
from St. Denis, Paris, and the suburbs. Their children,
both boys and girls, were the cleverest tricksters. Nearly
all had their ears pierced and in each ear were one or two
silver rings, which they said were a sign of good birth in
their own country ; they were exceedingly dark and with
woolly hair. The women were the ugliest and blackest
ever seen ; their faces were covered with sores, their hair
was black as the tail of a horse, their clothes consisted
of an old flaussoie or schiavina tied over the shoulder by a
cord or morsel of cloth, and beneath it a poor shirt. In
a word, they were the most wretched creatures who had
ever been seen in France, within the memory of the
oldest inhabitant. Their poverty notwithstanding, they
had sorceresses among them who inspected the hand,
telling what had happened to the person consulting
them in their past life and what awaited them in the
future. They disturbed the peace of households, for
they denounced husband to wife and wife to husband.
And what was still worse, while talking to people about
their magic art, they managed to fill their purses by
emptying those of their hearers. One citizen of Paris
who gives account of these facts adds that he himself
talked to them three or four times without losing a half-
308
The Adepts and the Priesthood
penny ; but this is the report of the people everywhere,
and the news reached the bishop of Paris, who went
thither taking a Minorite friar called the little Jacobin,
and he, by the bishop's command, preached a great
sermon and excommunicated all, male and female who
had told fortunes and all who had shewn their hands.
The horde was ordered away and departed accordingly
on September 8, proceeding towards Pontoise."
It is not known whether they continued their journey
North of the capital, but their memory has survived in
a corner of the Department du Nord. '* As a fact, in
a wood near the village of Hamel, five hundred feet
from a druidic monument consisting of six stones, there
is a fountain which is called the Sorcerer's Kitchen, and
it is there, according to tradition, that the Cava Maras
rested and quenched their thirst. Now these were
assuredly the Carasmar^ namely, the Bohemians, or
wandering sorcerers and diviners, to whom ancient
Flemish charters granted the right to be fed by the
inhabitants."
They left Paris, but others came in their place, so
that France was exploited as much as other countries.
There is no record of their landing in England or in Scot-
land, but before very long the latter kingdom numbered
more than one hundred thousand.^ They were called seard
and caird^ as much as to say artisans, craftsmen, for the
Scotch word is derived from the Sanskrit k + r, whence
comes the verb to do, the Ker-aben of the gipsies and the
Latin cerdo or bungler, which they are not. If there was
no trace of them at the same period in northern Spain,
where the Christians took refuge against the Moslem
domination, it was doubtless because the Arabs in the
South were more to their liking ; however, under John II
the gipsies were clearly distinguished from these latter,
though no one knew whence they came. To sum up,
it came about that, from the time in question forward,
^ The authority of George Borrow is quoted for this statement.
The History of Magic
they were generally known over the whole European
continent. One of the bands of king Sindel appeared at
Ratisbon in 1433, while Sindel himself, accompanied by
his reserve, camped in Bavaria in 1439. He seemed to
have come from Bohemia, for the Bavarians, unaware
that in 1433 the tribe had given themselves out as
Egyptians, termed them Bohemians, under which name
they reappeared in France and so have been known
therein. Willy-nilly, they were tolerated. Some per-
ambulated the mountains, seeking gold in the rivers ;
some forged shoes for horses and chains for dogs ; others
— more marauders than pilgrims — crept about, ferreting
everywhere, and everywhere thieved and pilfered. A
few of them, weary of shifting and fixing their tents
continually, came to a stand and hollowed out hovels,
square huts of four to six feet, underground, and covered
with a roof of green branches, the ridge of which, set
across two stakes, in the form of a Y, rose scarcely more
than two feet above the soil. It was in this den, of
which little more than the name has remained in France,
that the whole family was huddled together pell-mell.
In such a lodging, with no opening but the door and a
hole for the smoke, the father hammered, the children —
crouched round the fire — blew the bellows and the
mother boiled the pot, which contained only the spoil of
poaching. Among old clothes, a bridle and a knapsack
hung from long wooden nails, with no other furniture
than an anvil, pincers and hammer — there met credulity
and love, maid and knight, lady of the manor and page.
There they shewed their bare white hands to the pene-
trating glance of the sibyl ; there love was purchased,
happiness was sold, and lying found its recompense.
Thence came mountebanks and cardsharpers, the star-
spangled robe and peaked hat of the magician, the
vagrants and their slang, street dancers and daughters of
joy. It was the kingdom of idleness and trupherie^ of
Villon manners and free meals. They were people who
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The Adepts and the Priesthood
were continually busy in doing nothing, as a simple
story-teller of the middle ages terms it. A scholar
who is equally modest and distinguished, M. Vaillant,
author of a history of the Rom-Muni or Bohemians, some
of whose pages we have cited, gives no more flattering
portrait, though he ascribes to the gipsies great importance
in the sacerdotal history of the ancient world. He recounts
how these strange Protestants of primitive civilisation,
travelling through the ages with a malediction on their
foreheads and rapine in their hands, excited curiosity
at first, then mistrust, finally proscription and hatred on
the part of mediaeval Christians. It will be readily under-
stood what dangers might attach to this people without a
fatherland, parasites or the whole world and citizens of
nowhere. They were Bedouins who perambulated empires
like deserts ; they were nomadic thieves who glided about
everywhere and remained nowhere. It came to pass speedily
that the people regarded them as sorcerers, even as demons,
casters of lots, stealers of children, and there was some
ground for all this. Moreover, the nomads began to be
accused everywhere of celebrating frightful mysteries in
secret; they were held responsible for all unknown
murders, for all mysterious abductions, as the Greeks of
Damascus accused the Jews of killing one of their
fraternity and drinking his blood. It was afiirmed that
they preferred boys and girls from twelve to fifteen years
old. Here was an effectual way to insure that they should
be held in horror and avoided by the young ; but it was
odious all the same, for the child and the common people
are only too credulous, while as fear begets hatred, so
also it tends to breed persecution. It was this which
came to pass ; they were not only avoided and fled from,
but they were refused fire and water ; Europe became
like India in their respect and every Christian was a
Brahman armed against them. In some countries, if a
young girl approached one of them to give alms out of
charity, her distracted governess would warn her to
The History of Magic
beware, for the gipsy was a katkaon^ an ogre, who would
suck her blood when she was asleep in thi night. The
girl drew back trembling. If a boy passed near enough
for his shadow to fall on the wall near which they were
seated, and where perhaps a whole gipsy family was
eating or basking in the sun, his master would cry :
'* Keep off, child ; these vampires will steal your shadow
and your soul will dance at their Sabbath through all
eternity." So did Christian hatred resuscitate the lemures
and goblins, the vampires and ogres as a ground of their
impeachment. ** They were descended From Mambres,
whose miracles competed against those of Moses; they
were sent by the king of Egypt to spy everywhere on the
children of Israel and render their lot intolerable ; they
were the murderers made use of by Herod to exterminate
the first-born of Bethlehem ; they were pagans indeed,
for others, but they did not understand a single word of
Egyptian, their language comprising, on the contrary, a
good deal of Hebrew, and they were therefore the refuse
of that abject race who slept in the tombs of Judea after
devouring the corpses which they contained ; they were
otherwise those miscreant Jews who were tortured, chased
and burned in 1348 for having poisoned our wells and
cisterns, and they had returned once again to the work.
As a final alternative, whether Jews or Egyptians,
Essenians or Chusians, Pharaohnians or Caphtorians,
Assyrian Balistari or Philistines of Canaan, they were
renegades, and it was testified in Saxony, France and
everywhere that they were fit only for burning and
hanging.
The proscription which came upon them fell also on
that strange book in which they used to consult destiny
and to obtain oracles. Its coloured cards bearing in-
comprehensible figures are undoubtedly the monumental
summary of all ancient revelations, the key to Egyptian
hieroglyphics, the keys also of Solomon, the primeval
scriptures of Enoch and Hermes. The author to whom
312
The Adepts and the Priesthood
we refer gives proof here of uncommon sagacity, speaking
of the Tarot as a man who as yet does not understand it
perfectly but has made it a profound study. What he
says is as follows : —
** The form, disposition, arrangement of these tablets,
and of the figures which they depict, though considerably
modified by time, are so manifestly allegorical, while the
allegories correspond so closely to the civil, philosophical
and religious doctrine of antiquity, that one is compelled
to regard them as a synthesis of the matter of faith
among ancient peoples. We have sought to make
evident already that the Tarot is a deduction from the
sidereal Book of Enochs who is Henochia ; that it is
modelled on the astral wheel of Athor, who is As-taroth ;
that, like the Indian Ot-tara, which is the polar bear or
Arc-tura in the northern hemisphere, it is the force
major {tarie)^ on which rests the solidity of the world
and the sidereal firmament of earth. Consequently, like
the polar Bear, which is regarded as the chariot of the
sun, the chariot of David and of Arthur, it is the Greek
fortune, the Chinese destiny, the Egyptian hazard, the lot
of the Romanies ; and that, in their unceasing revolution
about the polar Bear, the stars pour down on earth those
auspices and fatalities, that light and shadow, cold and
heat, whence flow the good and evil, the love and hatred
which make up human happiness.
" If the origin of this book is so lost in the night of
time that no one knows where or when it was invented,
everything leads us to believe that it is of Indo-Tartaric
origin and that, variously modified among ancient nations,
according to the phases of their doctrines and the charac-
teristics of their wise men, it was one of their books of
occult science, possibly even one of their sibylline books.
We have sufficiently indicated the road by which it has
reached us ; we have seen that it must have been known
to the Romans and that it came to them not only from
the first days of the empire but of the Republic itself, by
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The History of Magic
the intervention of those numerous strangers of eastern
origin, who were initiated into the mysteries of Bacchus
and of Isis, and who brought their knowledge to the
heirs of Numa."
Vaillant docs not say that the four hieroglyphical
signs of the Tarot — being Wands, Cups, Swords and
Deniers, or golden circles — are found in Homer, sculp-
tured on the shield of Achilles ; but according to him :
" the Cups are the arcs or arches of time, the vessels or
ships of heaven. The Deniers are the constellations,
fixed and movable stars. The Swords are fires, flames,
rays ; the Wands are shadows, stones, trees, plants.
The Ace of Cups is the vase of the universe, the arch of
celestial truth, the principle of earth. The Ace of
Deniers is the sun, the great eye of the world, the suste-
nance and element of life. The Ace of Swords is the
spear of Mars, whence come wars, misfortunes and vic-
tories. The Ace of Wands is* the serpent's eye, the
pastoral crook, the cowherd's goad, the club of Hercules,
the emblem of agriculture. The two of Cups is the cow,
lo or Isis, and the bull Apis or Mnevis. The three of
Cups is Isis, the moon, lady and queen of night. The
three of Deniers is Osiris, the sun, lord and king of day.
The nine of Deniers is the messenger Mercury, or the
angel Gabriel. The nine of Cups is the gestation of
good destiny,, whence comes happiness."
Finally, M. Vaillant tells us that there is a Chinese
diagram consisting of characters which form great oblong
compartments, of equal size and precisely that of the
Tarot cards. These compartments are arranged in six
perpendicular columns, the first five consisting of fourteen
compartments each, making seventy m all ; whilst the
sixth is only half filled and contains seven compartments.
Moreover, this diagram is formed after the same combi-
nation of the number seven ; each complete column is of
twice seven or fourteen compartments, while the half
column contains seven compartments. It is so much like
3H
The Adepts and the Priesthood
the Tarot that the four suits of the latter occupy the
four first columns ; in the fifth column are the twenty-
one trumps, while the seven remaining trumps are in the
sixth column, the last representing the six days constitut-
ing the week of creation. Now, according to the Chinese,
this diagram goes back to the first epoch of their empire,
being the drying up of the waters of the deluge by Iao.
The conclusion is, therefore, that this is either the original
Tarot or a copy thereof; that Ln any case the Tarot is
anterior to Moses, is referable to the beginning of the
ages, or the epoch of the formulation of the Zodiac ; and
that its age is consequently six thousand six hundred
years.^
" Such is the Romany Tarot from which by transpo-
sition the Hebrews have made the word Torahy signifying
the Law of Jehovah. So far then from being a game, as
it is at the present day, it was a book, and a serious book,
the book of symbols and of emblems, of analogies or the
relations between stars and man; the book of destiny,
by the aid of which the sorcerer unveiled the mysteries
of fortune. Its figures, their names, their number, and
the oracles drawn from these made it naturally regarded
by Christians as the instrument of a diabolical art, a work
of Magic. It will be hence understood with what seve-
rity they proscribed it, the moment it became known to
them by that abuse of confidence which the rashness of
the Sagi committed on public credulity. In this manner,
faith being lost in its message, the Tarot became a game,
while its pictures underwent modification according to
the taste of nations and the successive spirit of centuries.^
^ Long before Vaillant, this Chinese inscription was described by
Court de Gebelin, who also believed that it was a form of the Tarot.
* If certain beautiful Tarot cards preserved in the Bibliotheque du
Roi and at the Musee Carrer are the work of Jacques Gringonneur,
which is disputed, as we have seen, then the Tarot is first heard of in
1393 and as it was in 1423 that St. Bernardin of Sienna preached
against playing cards, which were no doubt Tarots, it is probable that
they were put to the same use at the earlier date that they were put to
at the later.
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The History of Magic
It is to the work in this trivial form that we owe our modern
playing cards, the combinations of which are comparable
to those of the Tarot in the same way as the game of
draughts is comparable to the game of chess. It follows
that the origin of cards is attributed wrongly to the reign
of Charles VI, and it may be noted further that the
initiates of the Order of the Belt, established before 1332
by Alphons XI, king of Castile, pledged themselves
not to play cards. Le Sage tells us that, in the days of
Charles V, St. Bernard of Sienna condemned cards to be
burnt and that they were then called triumphales after
the game of triumph played in honour of the victorious
Osiris or Ormuzd, represented by one of the Tarot cards.
Furthermore, that king himself proscribed cards in 1369
and the reason that little Jean de Saintr6 was honoured
by his favour was because he did not play. In those
days cards were termed Naipes in Spain and Naibi in Italy,
the Naibi being she-devils, sibyls and pythonesses."
M. Vaillant, from whom we have been again quoting,
considers therefore that the Tarot has been modified and
altered, which is true for the German examples bearing
Chinese figures, but not for those of Italy, which have
only been altered in details, nor for those of Besancon,
in which traces remain of primitive Egyptian hierogly-
phics. In the Doctrine and Ritual of ^transcendental Magic ^
we have shewn how untoward in their results were the
labours of Etteilla or AUiette in respect of the Tarot.
This illuminated hairdresser, after working for thirty
years, only succeeded in producing a bastard set, the
Keys of which are transposed, so that the numbers no
longer answer to the signs. In a word, it is a Tarot
suited to Etteilla and to the measure of his intelligence,
which was not of great extent.
We are scarcely in agreement with M. Vaillant, when
he suggests that the gipsies were the lawful proprietors
of this key to initiations. They owed it doubtless to
the infidelity or imprudence of some Kabalistic Jew. The
The Adepts and the Priesthood
gipsies originated in India, or their historian has at least
shown the likelihood of this theory. Now the extant
Tarot is certainly that of the gipsies and has come to
us by way of Judea. As a fact, its keys are in corre-
spondence with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and
some of its figures reproduce even their forms. What
then were the gipsies ? As a poet has said : They were
the debased remnant of an ancient world ; they were a
sect of Indian Gnostics, whose communism caused them
to be proscribed in every land ; as they may be said to
admit practically, they were profaners of the Great Arca-
num, overtaken by a fatal malediction. A horde misled
by some enthusiastic fakir, they had become wanderers
through the world, protesting against all civilisations in
the name of a pretended natural law which dispensed
them from almost every duty. Now the law which seeks
to prevail in violation of duty is aggression, pillage and
rapine ; it is the hand of Cain raised against his brother,
and society in defending itself seems to be avenging the
death of Abel.
In 1 840 certain mechanics of the Faubourg St. Antoine,
weary, as they put it, of being hoodwinked by journalists
and of serving as tools for the ambition of ready speech-
makers, resolved to found and to edit a journal of pure
radicalism and of logic apart from evasion or circumlo-
cution. They combined therefore and deliberated for
the firm establishment of their doctrines ; they took as
their basis the republican device of liberty, equality and
the rest. But liberty seemed to them incompatible with
the duty of labour, equality with the law of property,
and they therefore decided on communism. One of
them, however, pointed out that in communism the
sharpest would preside over the division and would get
the lion's share ; it was decreed thereupon that no one
should have the right to intellectual superiority. But it
was further remarked that even physical beauty might
constitute an aristocracy, so they decreed that there
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The History of Magic
should be an equality in ugliness. Finally, as those who
till the ground are yoked to the ground, it was settled
that true communists could not follow agriculture, must
have only the world for their fatherland and humanity
itself for their family, whence it became them to have
recourse to caravans and go round the world eternally.
We are not relating a parable, we have known those
who were present at the convention in question and we
have read the first number of their journal, which was
entitled The Humanitarian and was suppressed in 1841.
As to this, the press reports of the period may be con-
sulted. Had the journal continued and had the incipient
sect recruited proselytes for the Icarian emigration, as
the old attorney Cabet was doing at the same period, a
new race of Bohemians would have been organised, and
vagabondage would have counted one race the more.
318
CHAPTER III
LEGEND AND HISTORY OF RAYMUND LULLY
We have explained that the Church proscribed initiation
because it was indignant at the profanations of the Gnosis.
When Mohammed armed eastern fanaticism against faith
he opposed savage and warlike credulity to the piety
which is ignorant but which prays. His successors set
foot in Europe and threatened to overrun it speedily.
The Christians said : Providence is chastising us ; and
the Moslems answered : Fatality is on our side.
The Jewish Kabalists, who were in dread of being
burnt as sorcerers in countries called catholic, sought an
asylum among the Arabs, for these in their eyes were
heretics but not idolaters. They admitted some of them
to a knowledge of their mysteries, and Islam, which had
already conquered by force, was before long in a position
to hope that it might prevail also by science over those
whom educated Araby termed in its disdain the barbarians
of the West. To onslaughts of physical force the genius
of France opposed the strokes of its own terrific hammer.
Before the flowing tide of Mohammedan armies a mail-
clad finger had traced a clear line and a mighty voice of
victory cried to the flood : Thou shalt go no further.
The genius of science raised up Raymund Lully, and he
reclaimed the heritage of Solomon for that Saviour Who
was the Son of David ; it was he who for the first time
called the children of blind faith to the splendours of
universal knowledge. The pseudo-scholars, and the
people who are wise in their own conceit, continue to
speak with scorn of this truly great man ; but the popular
instinct has avenged him. Romance and legend have
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The History of Magic
taken up his story, with the result that he is pictured as
one impassioned like Abelard, initiated like Faust, an
alchemist even as Hermes, a man of penitence and learn-
ing like St. Jerome, a rover after the manner of the
Wandering Jew, a martyr in fine like St. Stephen, and
one who was glorious in death almost as the Saviour of
the world.
Let us make our beginning with the romance : it is
one of the most touching and beautiful that have come
within our knowledge.
On a certain Sunday, in the year 1250, a beautiful
and accomplished lady, named Ambrosia di Castello,
originally of Genoa, went, as she was accustomed, to
hear mass in the church of Palma, a town in the island
of Majorca. A mounted cavalier of distinguished appear-
ance and richly dressed, who was passing at the time in
the street, noticed the lady and pulled up as one thunder-
struck. She entered the church, quickly disappearing in
the shadow of the great porch. The cavalier, quite nn-
conscious of what he did, spurred his horse and rode after
her into the midst of the affrighted worshippers. Great
was the astonishment and scandal. The cavalier was~well
known ; he was the Seigneur Raymund Lully, Seneschal
of the Isles and Mayor of the Palace, He had a wife
and three children, while Ambrosia di Castello was also
married and enjoyed, moreover, an irreproachable reputa-
tion. Raymund Lully passed therefore for a great liber-
tine. His equestrian entrance into the church of Palma
was noised over the whole town, and Ambrosia, in the
greatest confusion, sought the advice of her husband.
He was apparently a man of sense, and he did not
consider his wife insulted because her beauty had turned
the head of a young and brilliant nobleman. He pro-
posed that Ambrosia should cure her admirer by a folly
as grotesque as his own. Meanwhile, Raymund Lully
had written already to the lady, to excuse, or rather to
accuse himself still further. What had prompted him,
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• . The Adepts and the Priesthood
he said, was " strange, supernatural, irresistible/' He
respected her honour and the aiffections which, he knew,
belonged to another ; but he had been overwhelmed.
He felt that his imprudence required for its expiation
high self-devotion, great sacrifices, miracles to be accom-
plished, the penitence of a Stylite and the feats of a
knight-errant.
Ambrosia answered : '' To respond adequately to a
love which you term supernatural would require an
immortal existence. If this love be sacrified heroically
to our respective duties during the lives of those who are
dear to each of us, it will, beyond all doubt, create for
itself an eternity at that moment when conscience and
the world will permit us to love one another. It is said
that there is an elixir of life ; seek to discover it,
and when you are certain that you have succeeded,
come and see me. Till then, live for your wife and
your children, as I also will live for the husband whom
I love ; and if you meet me in the street make no sign
of recognition."
It was evidently a gracious conge ^ which put off her
lover till Doomsday ; but he refused to understand it as
such, and from that day forth the brilliant noble dis-
appeared to make room for the grave and thoughtful
alchemist. Don Juan had become Faust. Many years
passed away ; the wife of Raymund Lully died ; Ambrosia
di Castello in her turn became a widow ; but the alchemist
appeared to have forgotten her and to be absorbed only
in his sublime work.
At length, one day, the widow being alone, Raymund
Lully was announced, and there entered the apartment a
bald and emaciated old man, who held in his hand a phial
filled with a bright and ruddy elixir. He advanced with
unsteady step, seeking her with his eyes. The object
which they sought was before them but he did not
recognise her, who in his imagination had remained
always young and beautiful.
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The History of Magic
"It is I," she said at length. "What would you
with me ? *'
At the accents of that voice, the alchemist startled
violently ; he recognised her whom he had thought fondly
to find unchanged. Casting himself on his knees at her
feet, he oflFered her the phial, saying : " Take it, drink it,
it is life. Thirty years of my own existence are comprised
in it ; but I have tried it, and I know that it is the elixir
of immortality.'*
" What," asked Ambrosia, with a sad smile, " have
you yourself drunk it ? '*
"For two months,'* replied Raymund, "after having
taken a quantity of the elixir equal to that which is con-
tained here, I have abstained from all other nourishment.
The pangs of hunger have tormented me ; but not only
have I not died, I am conscious within me of an un-
paralleled accession of strength and life.'*
"I believe you,'* said Ambrosia, "but this elixir,
which preserves existence, is powerless to restore lost
youth. My poor friend, look at yourself,** and she held
up a mirror before him.
Raymund Lully recoiled, for it is affirmed by the
legend that he had never surveyed himself in this manner
during the thirty years of his labours.
" And now, Raymund," continued Ambrosia, " look
at me," and she unbound her hair, which was white as
snow ; then, loosening the clasps of her robe, she exposed
to him her breast, which was almost eaten away by a
cancer. '*Is it this," she asked piteously, "which you
wish to immortalise .? "
Then, seeing the consternation of the alchemist, she
continued : " For thirty years I have loved you, and
I would not doom you to a perpetual prison in the
body of an infirm old man ; in your turn, do not
condemn me. Spare me this death which you term
life. Let me suffer the change which is necessary before
I can live again truly : let us renew our nature with an
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The Adepts and the Priesthood
eternal youth. I have no wish for your elixir, which
prolongs only the night of the tomb : I aspire to
immortality."
Raymond LuUy thereupon cast down the phial,
which was broken on the ground.
"I deliver you," he said, "and for your sake I
remain in prison. Live in the immortality of heaven,
while I am condemned for ever to a living death on this
earth."
Then, hiding his face in his hands, he went away
weeping. Some months after, a monk of the Order
of St. Francis assisted Ambrosia di Castello in her last
moments. This monk was the alchemist, Raymund
Lully. The romance ends here and the legend follows.
This legend merges several bearers at different periods of
the name Raymund Lully into a single personality, and
thus endows the repentant alchemist with a few centuries
of existence and expiation. On the day when the unfor-
tunate adept should have expired naturally, he experienced
all the agonies of dissolution ; then, at the supreme
crisis, he felt life again take possession of his frame, like
the vulture of Prometheus resuming its banquet. The
Saviour of the world, Who had stretched forth His hand
towards him, returned sorrowfully into heaven, and
Raymond Lully found himself still on earth, with no
hope of dying.
He betook himself to prayer, and devoted his
existence to good works ; God granted him all graces
save that of death, but of what profit are the others in
the absence of that which should complete and crown
them all ? One day the Tree of Knowledge was shewn
to him, laden with its luminous fruits ; he understood
being and its harmonies ; he divined the Kabalah ; he
established the foundations and sketched the plan of
an universal science, from which time he was saluted
as the illuminated doctor. So did he obtain glory, that
fatal recompense of toil which God, in His mercy,
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The History of Magic
seldom confers upon great men till after their death,
because it intoxicates and poisons the living. But
Raymund LuUy, who could not by death give place to
the glory after, might have occasion to fear that it would
perish before himself, and meanwhile it could seem to
him only a derision of his immortal misfortune.
He knew how to make gold, so that he might
purchase the world and all its kingdoms, yet he could
not assure to himself the humblest tomb. He was the
pauper of immortality. Everywhere he went begging
for death, and no one was able to give it him. The
courtly nobleman had become an absorbed alchemist,
the alchemist a monk; the monk became preacher,
philosopher, ascetic, saint, and, last of all, missionary.
He engaged hand to hand with the learned men of
Arabia ; he battled victoriously against Islam ism, and
had everything to fear from the fury of its professors.
Everything to fear — this means that he had something
to hope, and that which he hoped for was death.^
He engaged a young Arab of the most fanatical
class as his attendant, and posed before him as the
scourge of the religion of Mohammed. The Arab
assassinated his master, which was what he expected ;
but Raymond LuUy did not die ; it was the assassin
that he would fain have forgiven who killed himself
in despair at his failure, so that conscience had an added
burden instead of deliverance and peace.
He was scarcely cured of his wounds when he
embarked for Tunis, in which place he preached
Christianity openly; but the Bey in admiration of
his learning and his courage protected him against
the madness of the crowd and caused him to re-embark
with all his books. Before long he returned to the
same parts, preaching at Bone, Bougia and other
African towns ; the Moslems were stupefied and feared
* The romantic history of Raymund Lully on which ^liphas L^vi
worked was written by Jean Marie de Vernon.
3H
The Adepts and the Priesthood
to lay hands upon him. In the end he revisited Tunis
and collecting the people in the streets, he proclaimed
that, though driven from the place, he had come back
to confound the impious doctrines of Mohammed and
to die for Jesus Christ. This time there was no
protection possible, the enraged people hunted him,
a veritable insurrection broke out ; he fled, to encourage
them further; already he was broken by many blows,
pouring with blood, covered with wounds ; and yet
he continued to live. He sank finally, buried — literally
speaking — under a mountain of stones.
On the same night, says the legend, two Genoese
merchants, Steven Colon and Louis de Pastorga, sailing
over the open sea, beheld a great light shining from the
port of Tunis. They changed their course and, ap-
proaching the shore, discovered a mound of stones,
which diffused far and near this miraculous splendour.
They landed in great astonishment, and finally discovered
the body of Raymund Lully, mangled but still breathing.
He was taken on board the ship and carried to Majorca,
where in sight of his native land the martyr was
permitted to expire. God set him free by a miracle
and his penance was so finished.
Such is the odyssey of the fabulous Raymund Lully ;
let us come now to the historical realities.
Raymund Lully, the philosopher and adept, being
the one who deserved the title of illuminated doctor,
was the son of that seneschal of Majorca who was made
famous by his ill-starred passion for Ambrosia di Castello.^
* What is certain historically is as follows : {a) That the story of
Ambrosia di Castello, so far as regards its root-matter, concerns the
original and only Raymund Lully, who was the author of the Ars Magna;
{i>) That it is in all probability fictitious ; {c) That it has been decorated
and dramatised by ]£liphas L^vi, who has done his work admirably ;
{d) That concerning the father of the illuminated doctor we know only
that he was a great soldier ; {e) That the author of the alchemical
treatises was not the author of the Ars Magna; (/) That the alchemical
writer is said to have been (i) another Raymund Lully, which, I think,
means only that he assumed the name in order to father his works upon
a celebrated person, and (2) a proselyte of the gate, being a person
325
The History of Magic
He did not discover the elixir of immortality, but he
made gold in England for King Edward III, and this
gold was called aurum Raymundi, There are extant certain
very rare coins which arc called Raymundins by experts.
Louis Figuier identifies these with the rose-nobles which
were struck during the reign in question,^ and suggests,
a little frivolously, that the alchemy of Raymund Lully
was only a sophistication of gold which would be difficult
to detect at a period when chemical processes were much
less perfect than they are at the present day. This notwith-
standing, he recognises the scientific importance of Lully
and gives his judgment concerning him as follows : —
'* Raymund Lully, whose genius embraced all branches
of human knowledge, and who brought together in the
^rs Magna a vast system of philosophy, summarising the
encyclopaedic principles of science as it then stood, could
not fail to bequeathe a valuable heritage to chymists.
He perfected and described carefully various compounds
which are used widely in chemistry ; we owe him the
preparation of carbonate of potassium by means of tartar
and by wood ashes, the rectification of spirits of wine,
the preparation of essential oils, the cuppellation of silver;,
and the preparation of sweet mercury." ^
Other scientists, feeling sure that the rose-nobles were
pure as gold, have speculated that, having regard to the
very imperfect processes of practical chemistry during
the middle ages, such transmutations as those of Ray-
mund Lully, and indeed other adepts, were merely the
separation of the gold found in silver mines, and purified
who becomes a Jew, but this is manifestly contradicted by the evidence
of the alchemical texts ; {g) That when the works of Raymund Lully
were collected, at the end of the eighteenth century, into eight enormous
folio volumes, we find, as I have said elsewhere, a third Raymund Lully,
who was a mystic ; but as to his real identity we know nothing.
^ Rose Nobles were replaced by Angels in 1465, te7?ip. Edward IV.
^ Louis Figuier wrote occult romances under the guise of history,
and did not know what he was talking about in respect of the Ars
Magna. There is no reason to suppose that it had even passed through
his hands. It was otherwise as regards the little alchemical texts ; and
there is no reason to question what he says concerning them.
326
The Adepts and the Priesthood
by means of antimony, which is actually indicated, in a
great number of Hermetic symbols, as the efficient and
chief element in the Powder of Projection.^ We agree
with them that chemistry was non-existent at the period
in question, and we may add that it was created by adepts
or rather that the adepts, while keeping to themselves
those synthetic secrets which were the treasure of the
magical sanctuaries, instructed their contemporaries as to
some of the analytical processes. These were afterwards
perfected, but they have not as yet led men of science to
reach that ancient synthesis which constitutes Hermetic
philosophy, in the proper sense of the term.
In his philosophical 'Testament^ Raymund Lully has
set forth all the principles of this science, but in a veiled
manner, following the practice and indeed the duty of
adepts. He also composed a Key to the 'Testament men-
tioned, and finally a Key to the Key or; more definitely,
a codicil, which is in our opinion the most important of
his writings on alchemy. Its principles and modes of
procedure have nothing in common either with the sophis-
tication of pure metals or with the separation of alloys.
As a theory, it is in conformity with the principles of
Geber and as a practice with those of Arnaldus de Villa-
nova ; in respect of doctrine it is in conformity with the
most exalted ideas of the Kabalah. Those earnest minds,
who refuse to be discouraged by the discredit into which
ignorance brings the great things, should study Kabalisti-
cally the codicil of Raymund Lully, if they seek to carry
on that research of the absolute which was followed by
the greatest men of genius in the elder world. '^
^ The story of a transmutation performed by some one called Raymund
Lully in England depends from the alchemical texts mentioned, and is
therefore no evidence, and from a forged Testament of John Cremer,
who called himself Abbot of Westminster, but no person of this name
filled the office in question, either at the supposed period or any other.
^ The tracts extant under the name of the alchemical Raymund Lully
are enumerated by Lenglet du Fresnoy m connection with those attri-
buted to the author of the Ars Magna. Mangetus prmted sixteen in his
Bibliotheca Chemica Cunosa^ 1702. The Codtcillus, Vade Mecutn^ or
Cantilena is a considerable work, divided into 74 chapters.
327
The History of Magic
The whole life of this pre-eminent adept, the first
initiate after St. John who was devoted to the hierarchic
apostolate of holy orthodoxy — his entire life, we repeat,
was passed in pious foundations, in preachings, in im-
mense scientific labours. Thus, in 1276, he established
at Palma a college of Franciscans dedicated to the study
of Oriental languages, and Arabic especially, with the
object of refuting the works of Mohammedan doctors
and of preaching the Christian faith among the Moors.
John XXI confirmed this institution by a pastoral letter
dated from Viterbo on December 16, in the first year of
his pontificate.
From 1293 ^^ 131I5 Lully solicited and obtained
from Pope Nicholas IV and from the kings of France,
Sicily, Cyprus and Majorca, the establishment of many
other colleges for the same purpose. Wherever he went
he gave instructions in his Great Art, which is an universal
synthesis of human knowledge, and has as its prime object
the institution of one language among men as also one
mode of thought. He visited Paris and there astonished
the most learned doctors ; afterwards he crossed over to
Spain, tarried at Complute, where he founded a central
academy for the study of languages and sciences. He
reformed a number of convents, went on to Italy and
recruited soldiers for a new military order, the institution
of which he advocated at the very Council of Vienna
which condemned the Templars. The catholic science
and the true initiation of St. John were intended thereby
to rescue the protecting sword of the Temple from faith-
less hands. The great ones of this world derided poor
Raymund Lully, and yet in their own despite they did all
that he desired. This illuminated personality, termed by
derision Raymund the Fantastic, seems to have been pope
of popes and king of kings ; he was poor as Job and
gave alms to sovereigns ; he was called a fool, and he
was of that order of folly which confounds sages. The
greatest politician of the period. Cardinal Ximenes, whose
328
The Adepts and the Priesthood
mind was as vast as it was serious, never spoke of him
except as the divine Raymund Lully and the most
enlightened doctor. He died in 13 14, according to
Genebrard, or in 131 5, according to the author of the
preface to the Meditations of the Hermit Blaquerne. He
was eighty years old, and the end of his toilsome and
holy existence came on the Festival of the martyrdom of
St. Peter and St. Paul.^
A disciple of the great Kabalists, Raymund Lully
sought to establish an absolute and universal philosophy
by substituting for the conventional abstractions of
systems a fixed notion of natural actualities and by sub-
stituting a simple and natural mode of expression for the
ambiguous terms of scholasticism. He condemned the
definitions of the scholars at his period because they
perpetuated disputes by their inexactitude and amphi-
bology. According to Aristotle, man is a reasonable
animal, but it may be replied that he is not an animal
and is only rarely reasonable. Moreover, the words animal
and reasonable cannot be brought into harmony ; a fool, in
this sense, would not be a man, and so forth. Raymund
Lully defined things by their right names and not by their
synonyms or approximations; afterwards he explained
the names by etymology. To the question — What is
man i* — he would therefore reply that the word, in its
general acceptation, signifies the state of being human, but
taken in a particular acceptation it designates the human
personality. What, however is this human personality }
Originally, it is the personality which God made by
breathing life into a body compounded of earth (Jiumus) ;
literally it is you, it is I, it is Peter, Paul, and so on.
Those who were accustomed to scientific jargon pro-
tested to the illuminated doctor that anyone could talk
like this ; that on the basis of such a method the whole
^ The reader may consult at this point my study of the life and
writings of Raymund Lully iri the Lives of Alchemy stical Philosophers^
pp. 68-88.
The History of Magic
world might pose as learned ; and that popular common
sense would be preferred before the doctrine of academies.
*'That is just what I wish/* was the answer of Raymund
Lully in his great simplicity. Hence the reproach of
puerility made against his enlightened theory ; and puerile
it was in a sense, but with the puerility of His counsel
Who said : " Except ye become as one of these little
ones, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven." Is
not the Kingdom of Heaven also that of science, seeing
that the celestial life of God and men is but understand-
ing and love ?
The design of Raymund Lully was to set the
Christianised Kabalah against the fatalistic magia of the
Arabs, Egyptian traditions against those of India, the
Magic of Light against Black Magic. He testified that,
in the last days, the doctrines of Antichrist would be a
materialised realism and that there would be a recrudes-
cence of all the monstrosities of evil Magic. Hence he
sought to prepare minds for the return of Enoch, or
otherwise for the final revelation of that science the key
of which is in the hieroglyphical alphabets of Enoch.
This harmonising light of reason and faith is to precede
the Messianic and universal reign of Christianity on
earth. So was Lully a great prophet for true Kabalists
and seers, while for sceptics who at least can respect
exalted characters and noble aspirations, he was a sublime
dreamer.
330
CHAPTER IV
ON CERTAIN ALCHEMISTS
Nicholas Flamel belongs to alchemy exclusively, and
he enters only into our consideration because of the
hieroglyphical book of Abraham the Jew, in which the
scrivener of the rue Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie found the
absolute keys of the Great Work. This book was
founded on the Keys of the Tarot and was simply
a hieroglyphical and Hermetic commentary on the
Sepher Yetzirah, We find as a fact, by the descrip-
tion of Flamel himself, that the leaves were 21 in
number, making 22 with the title,^ and that they
were divided into three septenaries, having a blank
leaf at every seventh page. Let us here bear in mind
that the Apocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and
prophetic summary of all occult types, also divided
its symbols into three septenaries, between each of
which there is silence in heaven, thus instituting a
striking analogy with the uninscribed leaf in the
mystic book of Flamel.^ The septenaries of the
Apocalypse are {a) seven seals to open, meaning seven
mysteries to be learned and seven difficulties to be
overcome ; (Z>) seven trumpets to sound, being seven
utterances to understand ; {c) seven vials to empty,
which signify seven substances which must be volatilised
and fixed.
In the work of Flamel the first seventh leaf has as
its hieroglyphical character the wand of Moses over-
coming the serpents brought forth by the magicians
* There is no reference to a title in the original text.
* It is stated once only in the Apocalypse that "there was silence in
heaven about the space of half an hour." See Chapter VIII, verse I.
The History of Magic
of Pharaoh. They are seen devouring one another,
and the figure as a whole is analogous to the Victor
of the Tarot, yoking to his cubic chariot the white and
black sphinxes of Egyptian Magic. The symbol in
question corresponds to the seventh dogma in the creed
of Maimonides : we acknowledge but one prophet, who
is Moses. It represents the unity of science and the
work ; it represents further the Mercury of the Wise,
which is formed by the dissolution of composites and by
the reciprocal action of the Sulphur and Salt of metals.
The emblem on the fourteenth page was the Brazen
Serpent set upon a cross. The cross represents the
marriage of the purified Sulphur and Salt, as also the
condensation of the Astral Light. The fourteenth
Trump card in the Tarot depicts an angel, who is the
spirit of the earth, mingling the liquids in two ewers, one
of gold and one of silver. It is the same symbol formu-
lated after another manner. On the 21st leaf of FlameFs
book there was the type of space and universal life, re-
presented by a desert with springs of water and serpents
gliding hither and thither.^ In the Tarot, space is typi-
fied by the four signs allocated to the cardinal points of
heaven, and life is represented by a naked girl dancing
in a circle. Flamel does not specify the number of springs
and serpents, but the former would probably be four,
springing from one source, as in the Pantacle of Eden ;
the serpents would be four, seven, nine or ten.
On the fourth leaf was the figure of Time, preparing
to cut off the feet of Mercury. Close by was a rose-tree
in blossom, the root being blue, the stem white, the
leaves red, and the flowers golden.^ The number four is
* The Book of Nicholas Flamel describes the symbols as follows : (i)
A Wand and serpents devouring one another ; (2) a Cross, on which a
serpent >vas crucified ; (3) Deserts, in the midst of which were many fair
fountains, whence issued a number of serpents that glided here and there.
* Mercury and Saturn — as Flamel supposed them to be — were de-
picted on the obverse side of this leaf and the symbolic flower was on the
reverse side. It is not said to be a rose, but simply a fair flower. The
rose-tree was on the obverse side of the fifth leaf.
332
The Adepts and the Priesthood
that of elemental realisation. Time is atmospheric nitre ;
his scythe is the acid which is extracted from this nitre,
and the Mercury is fixed thereby, being transformed into
salt. The rose-tree represents the Work and the suc-
cessive colours which characterise its stages : it is the
mastery passing through the black, white and red aspects,
out of which gold is produced as a blossom that buds and
unfolds.
The number 5 is that of the Great Mystery, and on
the fifth page blind men were represented digging up the
ground round the rose-tree in search of the grand agent
which is present everywhere. Some others, who were
better advised, were weighing a white water, resembling a
solidified air.^ On the reverse side of this page was the
massacre of the innocents, with the sun and moon
descending to bathe in their blood. This allegory, which
is the literal secret of Hermetic art, has reference to that
process of taking air into air, as Aristeus '^ puts it ; or, to
speak intelligible language, of using air as force, expand-
ing it by means of Astral Light, just as water is changed
into steam by the action of fire. This can be accom-
plished by the aid of electricity, magnets and a powerful
projection of the operator s will, when directed by science
and good intent. The children's blood represents that
essential light which is extracted by philosophical fire
from elementary bodies. When it is said that the sun
and moon come down to bathe, the meaning is that the
silver therein is tinctured into gold and that the gold
acquires a grade of purity by which its sulphur is trans-
formed into the true Powder of Projection.
We are not writing a treatise on alchemy, although
this science is really Transcendental Magic put into opera-
tion ; we reserve its revelations and wonders for other
special and more extended works.
* The original has no reference to solidified air.
* Otherwise, Arisleus, who figures prominently in the discourses of
the Turba Philosophorum.
333
The History of Magic
Popular tradition affirms that Flamel did not die and
that he buried a treasure under the tower of Saint-Jacques-
la-Boucherie. According to illuminated adepts, this
treasure, contained in a cedar box covered with plates
of the seven metals, was the original copy of the famous
book attributed to Abraham the Jew, with commentaries
in the writing of Flamel and sufficient specimens of the
Powder of Projection to transmute the sea into gold,
supposing that the sea were Mercury.
After Flamel came Bernard Trevisan, Basil Valentine
and other famous alchemists. The twelve Keys of Basil
Valentine are at once Kabalistic, magical and Hermetic.
Then in 1480 appeared Trithemius, who was the master
of Cornelius Agrippa and the greatest dogmatic magician
of the middle ages. Trithemius was an abbot of the
Order of St. Benedict, of irreproachable orthodoxy and
unimpeachable conduct. He was not so imprudent as
to write openly on occult philosophy, like his venture-
some disciple Agrippa. All his magical works turn on
the art of concealing mysteries, while his doctrine was
expressed in a pantacle, after the manner of true adepts.
This pantacle is excessively rare, and is found only in a
few manuscript copies of his tract De Septem Secundeis,
A Polish gentleman and man of exalted mind and noble
heart. Count Alexander Branistki possesses a curious
example which he has kindly shewn to us. The pantacle
consists of two triangles joined at the base, one white and
the other black. At the apex of the black triangle there
is a fool crouching, who turns his head with difficulty
and gazes awe-struck into the triangle, where his own
likeness is reflected. On the apex of the white triangle
stands a man in the prime of life, armed as a knight,
having a steady glance and an attitude of strong and
peaceful command. In this triangle are inscribed the
letters of the divine Tetragram. The natural and
exoteric sense of the emblem may be explained by an
aphorism as follows : The wise man rests in the fear of
334
The Adepts and the Priesthood
the true God, but the f©ol is overwhelmed by the terror
of a false god made in his own image. By meditating
on the pantacle as a whole, and thereafter on its consti-
tuents successively, the adepts, however, will find therein
the last word of Kabalism and the unspeakable formula
of the Great Arcanum. In other words, it is the distinc-
tion between miracles and prodigies, the secret of appari-
tions, the universal theory of magnetism and the science
of all mysteries.
Trithemius composed a history of Magic, written
entirely in pantacles, under the title : Veterum Sophorum
Sigilla et Imagines Magica, In his Steganography and
Polygraphy he gives the key to all occult writings and
explains in veiled terms the real science of mcantations
and evocations. Trithemius is in Magic the master of
masters, and we have no hesitation in proclaiming him
the most wise and learned of adepts.
It is otherwise with Cornelius Agrippa, who was a
seeker all his life and attained neither science nor peace.
His books are full of erudition and assurance ; he was
himself of an independent and phantastic character, so
it came about that he passed for an abominable sorcerer
and was persecuted by the priesthood and princes. In
the end he wrote against the sciences which had failed to
bring him happiness, and he died in misery and aban-
donment.
We now come to the mild and pleasing figure of
that learned and sublime Postel who is known only by
his over-mystical love for an elderly but illuminated
woman. There is something far different in Postel from
the disciple of Mother Jeanne, but vulgar minds prefer
to disparage rather than to learn and have no wish to see
anything better in him. It is not for the benefit of these
that we propose to mabe known the genius of William
Postel.
He was the son of a poor peasant, belonging to the
district of Barenton in Normandy; by force of perse-
335
The History of Magic
verance and much sacrifice, he contrived to teach him-
self and became the most learned man of his time ; but
poverty pursued him always and want occasionally com-
pelled him to sell his books. Full of resignation and
sweetness, he worked like a labouring man to win a
morsel of bread and then went back to his studies. He
acquired all known languages and sciences of his period ;
he discovered rare and priceless manuscripts, including
the apocryphal gospels and the Sepher Tetzirah; he ini-
tiated himself into the mysteries of the transcendental
Kabalah,^ and in his simple admiration for that absolute
truth, for that supreme reason of all philosophies and
dogmas, it was his ambition to reveal it to the world.
He therefore spoke the language of mysteries openly
and wrote a book entitled the Key of Things kept Secret
from the Foundation of the World?' He dedicated this
work to the fathers assembled at the Council of Trent,
entreating them to enter the path of conciliation and
universal synthesis. No one understood him, some
accused him of heresy and the most moderate were con-
tented to say that he was a fool.
The Trinity, according to Postel, made man in Its
image and Its likeness. The human body is dual and
its triadic unity is through the union of the two halves.
The human soul is also dual ; it is animus and anima^ or
intellect and emotion ; it has also two sexes, the male
being resident in the head and the female in the heart.
Redemption in its completion must also be dual in
humanity ; the mind by its purity makes good the errors
of the heart, and then the generosity of the heart must
rescue the egoistic barrenness of the brain. Christianity,
from Posters standpoint, has been so far understood only
by the reasoning mind and has not entered into the heart.
* There is an old story that he translated the Sepher Ha Zohar into
Latin, but the manuscript has never been found.
* It was first published at Basle and afterwards at Amsterdam in
1646. In 1899 the second edition was rendered into French. It deserves
and will repay careful reading from the mystic point of view,
336
The Adepts and the Priesthood
The Word has been made man, but the world will be
saved when the Word shall have been made woman.
The sublime grandeurs of the spirit of love will be taught
by the maternal genius of religion, and then reason will
be harmonised with faith, because it will comprehend,
interpret and restrain the sacred excesses of devotion.
Observe, he remarks, how religion is understood by
the majority of Christians ; it is only as an ignorant and
persecuting partiality, a superstitious and stupid stubborn-
ness, and fear — base fear — above all. Why is this?
Because those who profess it have not the woman-heart,
because they are foreign to the divine enthusiasms of
that mother-love which explains all religion. The power
that has invaded the brain and binds the spirit is not that
of the good, understanding and longsufFering God ; it is
of the wicked, imbecile and cowardly Satan. It comes
about in this manner that there is far more fear of the
devil than love for the Divine. The frozen and shrivelled
brain weighs on the dead heart like a tombstone. What
an awakening will it be for understanding, what a rebirth
for reason, what a victory for truth when the heart shall
be raised by grace. Why am I the first and altnost the
only person to comprehend this, and what can one who
has attained resurrection perform alone among the dead
who can hear nothing } Come therefore and come
/quickly, O mother-spirit, who appeared to me at Venice
in the soul of a virgin inspired by God ; descend and
teach the women of the new world their redeeming
mission and their apostolate of holy and spiritual life.
It is a fact that Postcl owed these noble inspirations
to a pious woman named Jeanne, whose acquaintance he
had made at Venice. He was the spiritual adviser of
this elect soul and was drawn into the current of mystic
poetry which eddied about her. When he administered
the Eucharist to her she became radiant and transfigured
in his eyes, and although she was more than fifty years
old, the poor priest confesses innocently that he would
337 Y
The History of Magic
have taken her for less than fifteen : so did the sympathy
of their hearts transform her in his eyes. One must have
followed the life of asceticism to understand such celes-
tial hallucinations and lyrical puerilities, such a mystic
marriage between two virginal beings, such extraordinary
enthusiasms of love in two pure souls. In her he dis-
cerned the living spirit of Jesus Christ by which the
world would be regenerated. I have seen, says he, this
light of the heart which will drive the hideous spectre
of Satan from all minds ; it is no chimera of my dreams ;
she has appeared in the world, has taken flesh in a maid,
in whom I have hailed the mother of the world to come.
This is analysing rather than translating Postel, but the
rapid abridgment of his sentiments and language will
make plain that he spoke figuratively and, as maintained
by the learned Jesuit Dcsbilions, in his notice on the life
and works of Postel, that nothing was further from his
thoughts than to represent, as some have pretended, a
second incarnation of divinity in this poor hospital sister
who had only drawn him by the brightness ot her humble
virtues. We are utterly certain that all those who have
slandered and ridiculed Postel are not worth one M^re
Jeanne.
The mystical relations of Postel and the nun con-
tinued for about five years, at the end of which time she
died, assuring her confessor that she would never be
parted from him but would help him when freed from
the bonds of material life. " She kept her promise," says
Postel ; ** she has been with me at Paris, has enlightened
me with her own light and has harmonised my reason
and my faith. Two years after her ascent into heaven,
her spiritual body and substance descended into me and
permeated sensibly my whole body, so that it is she
rather than myself who lives in me.'' After this experience
Postel always regarded himself as a risen being and signed
himself Postellus Restitutus. As a matter of fact one
curious result followed ; his white hair became again
338
The Adepts and the Priesthood
black, his wrinkles disappeared and the ruddy colour of
youth was assumed by his countenance, previously made
thin and pallid by his austerities and vigils. His derisive
biographers assert that he dyed his hair and painted his
face ; it was insufficient to picture him as a fool, and so
out of his noble and generous character they produced a
juggler and charlatan. Assuredly the imbecility or bad
faith of cold and sceptic minds, when they pass judg-
ment on enthusiastic hearts, is more wonderful than the
eloquent unreason of the latter.
** It has been imagined," writes Father Desbillons,
** and is still, I understand, believed that the regeneration
supposed to have been accomplished by Mother Jeanne
is the foundation of his system ; it had however been
completely developed before he was aware of her exist-
ence, and he never departed from it, unless indeed he did
so a few years before his death. It had come into his
mind that the evangelical reign of Jesus Christ, estab-
lished by the Apostles, could be no longer maintained
among Christians or propagated among infidels unless
enforced by the light of reason. To this principle, which
affected him personally, he added another, being the
destination of the king of France to universal monarchy.
The way of the Second Advent must be prepared by
conquest of hearts and conviction of minds, that there
may be henceforth but one faith and Jesus Christ reign-
ing over the whole world in the person of a single king
and in virtue of one law.*' According to Father Des-
billons, this proves that Postel was mad. Mad for having
thought that religion should reign over minds by the
supreme reason of its doctrine and that the monarchy,
to be strong and permanent, should bind hearts together
by the victories of public prosperity under the dominion
of peace. Mad for having believed in the coming of
that kingdom about which we say daily — His kingdom
come. Mad because he believed in reason and justice
on earth. Well, Vv'cll, they spoke truly ; poor Postel
339
The History of Magic
was mad. The proof of his madness is that he wrote,
as already said, to the Fathers of the Council of Trent,
entreating them to bless the whole world and to launch
anathemas against no one. As another example, he
tried to convert the Jesuits and cause them to preach
universal concord among men — peace between sovereigns,
reason among priests, and goodness among the princes of
this world. In fine, as a last and supreme madness, he
neglected the benefits of this world and the favour of the
great, lived always humbly and in poverty, possessed
nothing but his knowledge and his books, and desired
nothing but truth and justice. May God give peace to
the soul of poor William Postel .
He was so mild and so good that his ecclesiastical
superiors took pity upon him and, thinking probably,
as was said later on of La Fontaine, that he was more
silly than wicked, they were contented with shutting him
up in his convent for the rest of his days. Postel was
grateful for the quiet thus ensured toward the close of
life, and he died peaceably, retracting everything that his
superiors required. The man of universal concord could
not be an anarchist ; he was before all things the sincerest
of catholics and humblest of Christians. The works
of Postel will be rediscovered one of these days and will
be read with wonder.
Let us pass to another maniac who was called Theo-
phrastus Aureolus Bombast and was known in the
World of Magic under the famous name of Paracelsus.
There is no need to recapitulate what has been said con-
cerning this master in our T>octrine and Ritual of Tran-
scendental Magic, but something may be added on the
occult medicine restored by Paracelsus. This truly
universal medicine is based upon a spacious theory of
light, called by adepts fluid or potable gold. Light, that
creative agent, the vibrations of which are the movement
and life of all things ; light, latent in the universal ether,
radiating about absorbing centres, which, being saturated
340
THE 'SEVEN PLANETS AND THEIR GF.NII
Facing p, 340
The Adepts and the Priesthood
thereby, project movement and life in their turn, so
forming creative currents ; light, astralised in the stars,
animalised in animals, humanised in human beings ; light,
which vegetates in plants, glistens in metals, produces all
forms of Nature and equilibrates all by the laws of
universal sympathy — this is that light which exhibits the
phenomena of magnetism, divined by Paracelsus, which
tinctures the blood, being released from the air as it is
inhaled and discharged by the hermetic bellows of the
lungs. The blood then becomes a true elixir of life,
wherein ruby and magnetic globules of vital light float
in a slightly gilded fluid. These globules are actual
seeds, ready to assume all forms of that world whereof the
human body is an abridgment. They can become rarefied
and coagulated, so renewing the humours which circulate
in the nerves and in the flesh encompassing the bones.
They radiate outside, or rather, in rarefying, they
are drawn by the currents of light and circulate in the
astral body — that interior and luminous body which
is dilated by the imagination of ecstatics, so that their
blood sometimes colours objects at a distance when these
have been penetrated and identified with the astral body.
In a special work on occult medicine that which is stated
here will be proved, however strange and paradoxical it
may seem at first sight to men of science.^ Such were
the bases of medicine as put forward by Paracelsus ; he
cured by sympathy of light ; he administered medicaments
not to the outward material body, which is entirely passive,
which can be rent and cut up without feeling anything
when the astral body has withdrawn, but to the inward
medium, to that vehicle which is the source of sensations.
The quintessence of these he renewed by sympathetic
quintessences. For example, he healed wounds by apply-
ing powerful reactives to the spilt blood, thus sending
back its physical soul and purified sap to the body. To
* This promise represents another unfulfilled intention of ^liphas
Levi.
341
The History of Magic
cure a diseased limb he made a limb of wax and, by will-
power, transferred thereto the magnetism of the diseased
limb. Then he treated the wax with vitriol, iron and
fire, thus reacting by imagination and magnetic corre-
spondence on the sick person himself, to whom the limb
of wax had become an appendix and supplement. Para-
celsus knew the mysteries of blood ; he knew why the
priests of Baal made incisions with knives in their flesh,
and then brought down fire from heaven ; he knew why
orientals poured out their blood before a woman to
inspire her with physical love ; he knew how spilt blood
cries for vengeance or mercy and fills the air with angels
or demons. Blood is the instrument of dreams and
multiplies images in the brain during sleep, because it is
full of the Astral Light. Its globules are bisexual,
magnetised and metalled, sympathetic and repelling.
All forms and images in the world can be evoked from
the physical soul of blood.
** At Baroche,'* says the estimable traveller Tavernier,^
** there is a first-class English house, which I reached on
a certain day with the English president, on my way from
Agra to Surat. There came also certain jugglers, asking
leave to exhibit some of their professional skill, and the
president was curious to see it. In the first place they
lighted a great fire, at which they heated iron chains,
then wound them about their bodies and pretended that
they were suffering in consequence, but no harm followed.
They next took a morsel of wood, set it in the ground
and asked one of the spectators to choose what fruit he
liked. His choice fell upon mangoes, and thereupon one
of the performers put a shroud about him and squatted
on the ground five or six times. I had the curiosity to
ascend to an upper room, where I could see through a
fold in the sheet what w^s being done by the man. He
^ See Les Six Voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier^ en Turquie^ en
Perse et aux Indes^ Paris, 1676. There were five French editions, and
the work was also translated into English.
342
The Adepts and the Priesthood
was actually cutting the flesh under the arm-pits with a
razor, and rubbing the wood with his blood. Each time
he rose up the wood grew visibly ; on the third occasion
there were branches and buds thereon, on the fourth the
tree was covered with leaves, and on the fifth it was
bearing flowers.
'' The English president had brought his chaplain from
Amadabat to baptize a child of the Dutch commander,
the president acting as godfather. The Dutch, it should
be mentioned, do not have chaplains except where soldiers
and merchants are gathered together. The English
clergyman began by protesting that he could not consent
to Christians assisting at such spectacles, and when he
saw how the performers brought forth from a bit of dry
wood, in less than half an hour, a tree of four or five feet
in height, having leaves and flowers as in springtime, he
felt it his duty to put an end to the business. He
announced therefore that he would not administer com-
munion to those who persisted in witnessing such occur-
rences. The president was thus compelled to dismiss the
jugglers.''
Dr. Clever de Maldigny, to whom we owe this extract,
regrets that the growth of the mangoes was thus stopped
abruptly, but he does not explain the occurrence. To
our mind it was a case of fascination by the magnetism of
the radiant light of blood, a phenomenon of magnetised
electricity, identical with that termed palingenesis, by
which a living plant is made to appear in a vessel con-
taining ashes of the same plant long since perished.
Of such were the secrets known by Paracelsus, and it
was in the application of these hidden natural forces to
purposes of medicine that he made at once so many
admirers and enemies. For the rest, he was by no means
a simple personality like Postel ; he was naturally
aggressive and of the mountebank type ; so did he
affirm that his familiar spirit was hidden in the pommel
of his great sword, and never left his side. His life was
343
The History of Magic
an unceasing struggle ; he travelled, debated, wrote,
taught. He was more eager about physical results than
moral conquests, and while first among practical magicians
he was last among adepts of wisdom. His philosophy
was one of sagacity and, on his own part, he termed it
philosophia sagax} He divined more than anyone without
knowing anything completely. There is nothing to equal
his intuitions, unless it be the rashness of his commentaries.
He was a man of intrepid experiences, intoxicated with
his own opinions, his own talk, intoxicated otherwise on
occasion, if we may believe some of his biographers.
The works which he has left are precious ror science, but
they must be read with caution. He may be called the
divine Paracelsus, understood in the sense of diviner ; he
is an oracle, but not a true master. He is great above
all as a physician, for he had found the Universal
Medicine. This notwithstanding, he could not prolong
his own life, and he died, while still young, worn out by
work and by excesses.^ He left behind him a name shining
with fantastic and ambiguous glory, due to discoveries by
which his contemporaries failed to profit. He had not
uttered his last word, and is one of those mysterious
beings of whom it may be said, as of Enoch and St. John :
He is not dead, and he will come again upon earth be-
fore the last day.
^ This is really the title of a particular treatise, but as it is exceed-
ingly long and may be said to be de oj?tnibus rebus y it may not be taken
unjustly to represent his philosophy at large.
' The latest and most successful apologist of Paracelsus says that the
charge of intemperance was invented by his enemies. See the Life of
Paracelsus y by Miss Anna M. Stoddart, 191 1,
344
CHAPTER V
SOME FAMOUS SORCERERS AND MAGICIANS
Amidst a great multiplicity of commentaries and studies
on the work of Dante, no one, that we are aware, has
signalised its characteristic in chief. The masterpiece of
the glorious Ghibelline is a declaration of war against
the papacy by a daring revelation of mysteries. The
epic of Dante is Johannite and Gnostic ; it is a bold appli-
cation of Kabalistic figures and numbers to Christian
dogmas, and is further a secret negation of the absolute
element therein ; his visit to the supernatural worlds takes
place like an initiation into the Mysteries of Eleusis and
Thebes. He is guided and protected by Virgil amidst the
circles of the new Tartarus, as if the tender and melan-
choly prophet of the destinies of the son of Pollio were,
in the eyes of the Florentine poet, the illegitimate yet
true father of the Christian epic. Thanks to the pagan
genius of Virgil, Dante emerges from that gulf above the
door of which he had read the sentence of despair ; he
escapes by standing on his head, which means by reversing
dogma. So does he ascend to the light, using the demon
himself, like a monstrous ladder ; by the force of terror
he emerges from terror, from the horrible by the power
of horror. He seems to testify that hell is without egress
for those only who cannot go back on themselves ; he
takes the devil against the grain, if I may use so familiar
an expression, and attains emancipation by audacity.^
* Eliphas L6vi, who rather misquotes Dante, held that he had per-
formed the same kind of mental pilgrimage, and had escaped in the same
manner — by reversing dogma. He says elsewhere : "It was after he had
descended from gulf to gulf and from horror to horror to the bottom of
the seventh circle of the abyss . . . that Dante . . . rose consoled and
345
The History of Magic
This is truly protestantism surpassed, and the poet of
Rome's enemies has already divined Faust ascending to
heaven on the head of the defeated Mephistopheles.
Observe also that the hell of Dante is but a negative
purgatory, by which is meant that his purgatory seems
to take form in his hell, as if in a mould ; it is like the
lid or stopper of the gulf, and it will be understood that
the Florentine titan in scaling Paradise meant to kick
purgatory into* hell/
His heaven is composed of a series of Kabalistic
circles divided by a cross, like the pantacle of Ezekiel ;
in the centre of this cross a rose blossoms, thus for the
first time manifesting publicly and almost explaining
categorically the symbol of the Rosicrucians. We say
for the first time because William of Lorris, who died
in 1260, five years before the birth of Dante, did not
complete the Romance of the Rose^ his mantle falling upon
Clopinel some fifty years later. It will be discovered
with a certain astonishment that the Romance of the Rose
and the Divine Comedy are two opposite forms of a single
work — initiation by independence of spirit, satire on all
contemporary institutions and an allegorical formula of
victorious to the light. We have performed the same journey, and we
present ourselves before the world with tranquillity on our countenance
and peace in our heart ... to assure mankind that hell and the devil
. . . and all the rest of the dismal phantasmagoria are a nightmare of
madness."
* The interpretation of the Divine Comedy as embodying an act of
war against the papacy was begun by Gabriele Rossetti, about 1830, in his
Disquisitions on the Anti-Papal Spirit which produced the Reformation,
For the obscure and dubious tenets to which Eliphas Levi gives the
name of Johannite, he substitutes the doctrines of Albigenses and Wal-
denses. The same thesis, taken over from its Italian deviser, was main-
tained in the same interest by Eugene Aroux, firstly in Les Mysteres de
la Chevalerie^ and afterwards in the great body of annotation attached
to his translation of Dante. The latter work appeared in 1856. The
interpretation of L6vi is a variant of that of Aroux. The disquisitions of
the French writer are a fountain of joy for criticism. He produced yet
another monument, being Dante^ HMtique^ Revolutionnaire et Socialiste^
1854. He was a devoted member of the Latin Church, though I think
that there would have been joy among the faithful had his books been
burnt at Rome.
346
The Adepts and the Priesthood
the grand secrets of the Brotherhood of the Rosy
Cross.
These important manifestations of occultism coincide
with the fall of the Templars, since Jean de Meung, or
Clopinel, a contemporary of Dante in the old age of the
latter, flourished during his best years at the court of
Philip the Fair. The Romance of the Rose is the epic of
old France, a profound work in a trivial form, a revela-
tion of occult mysteries as instructed as that of Apuleius.
The roses of Flamel, Jean de Meung and Dante belong
to the same bush.
A genius like Dante could not be an arch-heretic.
Great men give an impetus to intelligence, and the im-
petus takes effect subsequently in activities which are
started by restless mediocrities. It may have been that
Dante was never read and he would assuredly not have
been understood by Luther. This notwithstanding, the
mission of the Ghibcllines, made fruitful by the potent
thought of the poet, raised up the empire against the
papacy by slow degrees ; it was continued from century
to century under various names, and in the end it made
Germany protestant. It was certainly not Luther who
produced the Reformation ; it was the latter which took
possession of Luther and impelled him forward. This
square-shouldered monk could boast only obstinacy and
daring, but he was the needful instrument for revolu-
tionary ideas. Luther was the Danton of anarchic theo-
logy ; superstitious and rashr he believed that he was
obsessed by the devil ; it was the devil who dictated his
arguments against the Church, made him declaim, spout
nonsense, and above all things write. The inspiring
genius of all the Cains asked nothing at that time but
ink, preassured that, given this fluid flowing from the
pen of Luther, there would be presently a sea of blood.
Luther was conscious of the fact, and he hated the devil
because he was another master; one day he threw the
ink-horn at his head, as if to satiate him by the violent
347
The History of Magic
libation. The episode recalls that jocular regicide who
daubed his accomplices with ink when he signed the
death-warrant of Charles I.
The device of Luther was: "Turk rather than
papist ; " and as a fact protestantism at its root is, like
Islamism, simple Deism organised into a conventional
cultus, or if it differs therefrom it is only by its remnants
of Catholicism imperfectly effaced. From the standpoint
of the negation of catholic dogma, the protestants are
Moslems with a few superstitions the more and a prophet
the less.
Men renounce God less unwillingly than they give
up the devil, as the apostates of all times have proved
abundantly. Speedily subdivided by anarchy, the dis-
ciples of Luther had but one bond of belief in common ;
all had faith in Satan, and this spectre, magnifying in
proportion as their spirit of revolt took them the farther
from God, reached terrible proportions at last. Carlostad,
archdeacon of Wiirtemberg, being one day in the pulpit,
saw a black man enter the temple, take a seat in front
of him and stare at him with dreadful fixity through the
entire length of his sermon. He became anxious, left
the pulpit and questioned the assistants ; but no one had
seen the phantom. Carlostad returned home in a state
of dismay ; he was met by the youngest of his sons, who
said that a stranger in black had inquired for him and
promised to return in three days. There was no room
for doubt in the mind of the hallucinated archdeacon ;
that stranger was the spectre of his vision. A fever was
brought on by his terror, he retired to bed and died
before the third day.
These unhappy heretics were afraid of their own
shadows ; their consciences had remained catholic and
consigned them to hell without pity. Walking one
evening with his wife Catherine de Bora, Luther looked
up to heaven, which was bright with stars, and said in an
undertone, as he sighed deeply: "Ah, beautiful sky,
348
The Adepts and the Priesthood
which I shall never see ! " ** What ! " exclaimed his
wife. '' Do you then think that you are condemned ? "
Luther answered : ** Who knows whether God will not
punish us for having been unfaithful to our vows ? "
Supposing that Catherine, seeing his lack of self-confidence,
had cursed and left him, it may be that the reformer,
overcome by the Divine Warning, would have recognised
his criminal offence in betraying that Church which was
his first spouse and would have turned weeping towards
the cloister which he had left wilfully. But God, Who
withstands the proud, doubtless found him unworthy
of this saving affliction. The sacrilegious comedy of
Luther's marriage was the providential punishment of
his pride, and as he remained obstinate m his sin, that
punishment was always with him and derided him to the
end. He died between the devil and his wife, appalled
at the one and exceedingly embarrassed by the other.
Corruption and superstition are well paired together.
The epoch of the dissolute Renaissance, equally perse-
cuting and credulous, was certainly not that of the second
birth of reason. Catherine de Medicis was a sorceress,
Charles IX consulted necromancers, Henry III played at
devotion and debauch. It was the heyday then of
astrologers, though a few of them were tortured from
time to time, to make them change their predictions.
There were, moreover, the court sorcerers, who dabbled
a little in poisoning and deserved the hangman's rope.
Trois-Echelles ^ the magician of Charles IX, was a juggler
and rogue ; one day he made confession to the King and
his misdeeds were not peccadillos ; the King forgave him,
but promised his cure on the gallows if he had a relapse ;
he did relapse, and was hanged in due course.^
^ The authority is the demonographer Bodin. Trois-Echelles con-
fessed to the King that he had given himself over to a spirit who enabled
him to perform prodigies. He was forgiven on condition that he de-
nounced others who were guilty of sorcery. It is supposed that his
subsequent condemnation was the consequence of new operations on his
own part.
349
The History of Magic
When the League vowed the death of the weakly
and miserable Henri III it had recourse to witchcraft
and Black Magic. L'Etoile ^ declares that a wax image
of the King was set on the altars where priests of the
League said Mass, and that the image was stabbed with
a knife during a prayer embodying maledictions and
anathemas. When the King failed to die with sufficient
celerity, it was concluded that he was also a sorcerer.
Pamphlets were published representing Henri III as
holding conventions where the crimes of Sodom and
Gomorrah were but the prelude of more frightful and
unheard of outrages. Included among the King's minions
there was said to be one who was the devil in person,
and young virgins were abducted and prostituted by
force to Beelzebub. 2 The people believed these fables,
and a fanatic was found at last to execute the threats
of sorcery. Jacques Clement suffered from visions and
imperious voices, which commanded him to kill the
King ; he sought regicide like a martyr and died laughing
like the heroes of Scandinavian mythology. Scandal-
mongering chronicles have pretended that a great lady
of the court supplemented the inspirations of the monk's
solitude by the magnetism of her caresses; but the
anecdote is wanting in probability. It was the monk's
continence which promoted his exaltation, and had he
begun to lead the blind life of passion an unsatiable
appetite for pleasure would have possessed his entire
nature and he would not have been willing to die.
Whilst religious wars incarnardined the world, secret
illuministic associations, which were nothing but theurgic
and magical schools, were incorporated in Germany.
* That is, Pierre de I'^^toile. See Veritable Fataliti de Saint Cloudy
art. 8.
2 This account is drawn from Garinet, who cites two pamphlets of
the period : (A) Les Sorcelleries de Henri de Valois, et les Oblations qt^il
faisait au Viable dans le Bois de Vincennes^ 1589; (B) Remonstrances d,
Henri de Valois sur les choses horribles envoy ies par un enfant de Paris ^
1589.
The Adepts and the Priesthood
The most ancient of these seems to have been that of
the Rosicrucians, whose symbols go back to the times
of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, as we see by the
allegories in the poem of Dante and by the emblems in
the Romance of the Rose.
The rose, which from all times has been the type
of beauty, life, love and pleasure, expressed mystically
the secret thought of all protests manifested at the
Renaissance.^ It was the flesh in rebellion against the
oppression of spirit; it was Nature testifying that, like
grace, she was a daughter of God ; it was love refusing
to be stifled by the celibate ; it was life in revolt against
sterility ; it was humanity aspiring towards natural
religion, full of reason and love, founded on the revela-
tions of the harmony of being, of which the rose, for
initiates, was the living floral symbol. It is in truth a
pantacle ; the form is circular, the leaves of the corolla
are heart-shaped and rest harmoniously on one another ;
its tint off^ers the most harmonious shades of the primitive
colours ; its calyx is of purple and gold. We have seen
that Flamel, or rather the Book of Abraham the Jew^ repre-
sents it as the hieroglyphical sign of the fulfilment of
the Great Work.^ Here is the key to the romance of
Clopinel and William de Lorris. The conquest of the
rose was the problem ofl^ered by initiation to science,
whilst religion was at work to prepare and to establish
the universal, exclusive and final triumph of the Cross.
The problem proposed by high initiation was the
union of the Rose and the Cross, and in eflFect occult
^ Compare Aroux : La Comidie de Dante, vol. ii., p. 33 of his Clef de
la Comidie, The Rose is " the Albigensian Church and its doctrines . . .
transformed into a mystic flower." Hence the immense vogue of the
romance of William of Lorris, despite the anathemas of Gerson.
* The words of Flamel are as follows : "On the fifth leaf was a fair
rose-tree, flowered, in the midst of a garden, growing up against a hollow
oak, at the foot whereof bubbled forth a fountain of pure whiie water,
which ran headlong down into the depths below. Yet it passed through
the hands of a great number of people who digged in the earth, seeking
after it, but, by reason of their blindness, none of them knew it, except
a very few, who considered its weight." Le Livre de Nicolas Flamel.
351
The History of Magic
philosophy, being the universal synthesis, must take into
account all phenomena of being. Considered solely as a
physiological fact, religion is the revelation and satisfac-
tion of a need of souls. Its existence as a fact is scientific,
and to deny it would be a denial of humanity itself. No
one has invented it ; like laws and civilisations, it is
formed by the necessities of moral life. From this
merely philosophical and restrained standpoint, religion
must be regarded as fatal if one explains all by fatality,
and as Divine if one confesses to a Supreme Intelligence
as the mainspring of natural laws.^ Hence it follows
that the characteristic of every religion, properly so called,
being to depend directly from Divinity by a supernatural
revelation — no other mode of transmission providing a
sufficient sanction of dogma — .it must be concluded that
the true natural religion is religion that has been revealed ;
this is to say, it is natural to adopt a religion only on
the understanding that it has been revealed, every true
religion exhorting sacrifices, and man having neither the
power nor right to impose the same on his fellow-creatures,
outside and especially above the ordinary conditions of
humanity.
Proceeding from this strictly rational principle, the
Rosicrucians were led to respect the dominant hierarchic
and revealed religion. They could be therefore no more
the enemies of the papacy than of legitimate monarchy,
while if they conspired against popes and kings, it was
because they considered these or those personally as
apostates in respect of duty and supreme abettors of
anarchy.^ What in fact is a .despot — whether spiritual
1 It will be seen that this is the counter-thesis to the explanation of
the spiritual world by means of natural law ; it is the explanation of the
natural world by means of spiritual law. So also Eliphas Ldvi is right
when he goes on to affirm in substance that the religion of supernatural
grace is the font of natural religion. It is in the light of the instituted
sacraments that we find the hidden grace of those in Nature.
2 " We do now securely call the Pope Antichrist, which was formerly
a capital offence. . . . We do hereby condemn the East and the West,
meaning the Pope and Mahomet. ... He (the Pope) shall be torn in
T*he Adepts and the Priesthood
or temporal — but a crowned anarchist? It is possible
to explain in this manner the protestantism and even
radicalism of certain great adepts, who were assuredly
more catholic than some popes and more monarchic than
some kings — of certain eccentric adepts, such as Henry
Khunrath and the true illuminati of his school.
By all but those who have made a particular study of
the occult sciences, Khunrath is practically unknown ; he
is a master notwithstanding, and one of the first rank.
He is a sovereign prince of the Rosy Cross, worthy in
all respects of this scientific and mystical title.^ His
pantacles are splendid as the light of the Book of
Splendour^ called Zohar ; they are learned as Trithemius,
precise like Pythagoras, complete in their disclosure of
the Great Work as the book of Abraham and Nicholas
Flamel.
Khunrath, who was chemist and physician, was born
in 1502, and he was forty- two years old when he attained
transcendent theosophical initiation.^ The Amphitheatre
of Eternal Wisdom^ which is the most remarkable of his
works, was published in 1598, for the approbation of the
Emperor Rudolph annexed thereto was dated on June i
of the year in question.^ Though professing a radical
protestantism, the author claims loudly the titles of
catholic and orthodox ; he testifies that he possesses, but
keeps secret as he ought, a key to the Apocalypse, which
pieces with nails, and a final groan shall end his ass's braying. . . . The
judgment due to the Roman Tmpostor who now poureth his blasphemies
with open mouth against Christ. . . . The mouth of this viper shall be
stopped." See Confessio Fraternitatis^ R.C., 16 16.
^ The Masonic title of Sovereign Princes Rose-Croix ascribed in
France to the members of the Eighteenth Degree, under the obedience of
the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, has been changed in England
to Excellent and Perfect Princes. The old Rosicrucian title was that of
Trater^ and the head of the Order was termed Imperator.
* I have let this date stand, as it is difl5cult to say what ]l6liphas L^vi
is driving at. Khunrath was bom in 1559 or 1560, and he died early in
the seventeenth century.
^ This is a mistake. The Amphitheatrum appeared in 1609, the
licence having been obtained previously.
353 z
T^he History of Magic
key is one and threefold, even as universal science. The
division of the work is sevenfold, and through these sec-
tions are distributed the seven degrees of initiation into
transcendental philosophy. The text is a mystical com-
mentary on the oracles of Solomon, ^ and the work ends
with a series of synoptic schedules which are the synthesis
of Magic and the occult Kabalah — so far as concerns that
which can be made public in writing. The rest, being
the esoteric and inexpressible part of the science, is
formulated in magnificent pantacles carefully designed
and engraved. These are nine in number, as follows :
(i) The dogma of Hermes; (2) Magical realisation;
(3) The path of wisdom and the initial procedure in the
work ; (4) The Gate of the Sanctuary enlightened by
seven mystic rays; (5) A Rose of Light, in the centre of
which a human figure is extending its arms in the form
of a cross ; (6) The magical laboratory of Khunrath,
demonstrating the necessary union of prayer and work ;
(7) The absolute synthesis of science; (8) Universal
equilibrium ; (9) A summary of Khunrath's personal
doctrine, embodying an energetic protest against all his
detractors.^ It is a Hermetic pantacle surrounded by a
German caricature, full of liveliness and ingenuous choler.
The philosopher's enemies are depicted as insects, zanies,
^ The work contains {a) 365 versicles drawn from Proverbs and the
apocryphal Book of Wisdoitiy the Latin Vulgate being printed side by side
with a new translation by Khunrath. These versicles are divided into
seven grades, {b) An interpretation at length of each versicle. {c) An
introduction to the first engraved plate ; {d) to the second ; {e) to the
third ; (/) to the fourth ; and {£) an epilogue or conclusion to the
whole work.
^ Eliphas Levi has misplaced most of the plates, and it is difficult to
follow his descriptions. No. i is the laboratory and oratory of the adept.
No. 2 is apparently that which he calls the Path of Wisdom. No. 3 is
the Philosophical Stone. No. 4 is that which Levi describes as the
Dogma of Hermes, because the sentences of the Emerald Tablet are
inscribed on a Rock of Ages or Mountain of Initiation. No. 5 is the
Gate of the Sanctuary, but it is enlightened by three rays. No. 6 is that
which L^vi terms a Rose of Light, but it is really the sun with Christ in
the centre. Nos. 7 and 9 correspond to the descriptions given ; but
No. 8 is scarcely a doctrine of equilibrium : it is the doctrine of regenera-
tion through Christ, in Whom the law is fulfilled.
354
The Adepts and the Priesthood
oxen, and asses, the whole being decorated with Latin
legends and gross German epigrams. Khunrath is shewn
on the right in the garb of a citizen, and on the left in
that of his student's apartment ; in both he makes faces
at his adversaries. As a townsman he is armed with a
sword and tramples on the tail of a serpent ; as a student
he is carrying a pair of tongs and is crushing the serpent's
head. In public he demonstrates and at home instructs,
but as indicated by his gestures, the truth is the same
always and expressed with disdain for the impure breath
of his adversaries. The latter notwithstanding is so pesti-
lential that the birds of heaven fall dead at their feet.
This exceedingly curious plate is wanting in many copies
of the work.
The book as a whole contains all mysteries of the
highest initiation. As the title announces, it is Christo-
Kabalistic, Divine-magical, physico-chemical, threefold-
one, and universal. It is a true manual of Transcendental
Magic and Hermetic Philosophy. A more complete and
perfect initiation cannot be found elsewhere, unless indeed
it is in the Sefher Tetzirah and Zohar, In the four import-
ant corollaries which follow the explanation of the third
figure, Khunrath establishes : (i) That the cost of accom-
plishing the Great Work (apart from the operator's main-
tenance and personal expenses) should not exceed the sum
of thirty thalers. He adds: **I speak with authority,
having learned from one who had knowledge ; those
who expend more deceive themselves and waste their
money." It follows that either Khunrath had not him-
self composed the Philosophical Stone or did not wish to
admit it for fear of persecution. He proceeds to establish
the duty of the adept not to devote more than the tenth
part of his wealth to his personal use, the rest being
consecrated to the glory of God and works of charity.
Finally, he affirms that the mysteries of Christianity and
Nature interpret and illuminate one another, and that the
future reign of Messiah will rest on the dual foundation
355
T^he History of Magic
of science and faith. The oracles of the Gospel being
thus confirmed by the book of Nature, it will be possible
to convince Jews and Mohammedans regarding the truth
of Christianity on the grounds of science and reason, so
/that — with the help of Divine Grace — they will be con-
verted infallibly to the religion of unity. He ends
with this maxim : " The seal of Nature and of Art is
simplicity/'
Contemporary with Khunrath there was another
initiated doctor, Hermetic philosopher and disciple of
Paracelsian medicine ; this was Oswald Crollius, author
of the Book of Signatures, or True and Vital Anatomy of
the Greater and Lesser World,^ The preface to this work
is a sketch of Hermetic philosophy, exceedingly well
done ; Crollius seeks to demonstrate that God and Nature
have, so to speak, signed all their works, that every pro-
duct of a given natural force bears the stamp of that
force printed in indelible characters, so that he who is
initiated in the occult writings can read, as in an open
book, the sympathies and antipathies of things, the
properties of substances and all other secrets of creation.
The characters of different writings were borrowed primi-
tively from these natural signatures existing in stars and
flowers, on mountains and the smallest pebble. The
figures of crystals, the marks on minerals, were impres-
sions of the thought which the Creator had in their
formation. The idea is rich in poetry and grandeur,
but we lack any grammar of this mysterious language of
worlds and a methodical vocabulary of this primitive and
absolute speech. King Solomon alone is credited with
having accomplished the dual labour ; but the books of
Solomon are lost. The enterprise of Crollius was not a
reconstitution of these, but an attempt to discover the
^ The Basilica Chymica was translated into French by J. Marcel de
Boulene and published at Lyons in 1624. It was reprinted at Paris in
1633. The third part is the Book of Signatures. The Latin edition
appeared at Frankfort in 1608.
356
The Adepts and the Priesthood
fundamental principles obtaining in the universal language
of the creative Word.
It was recognised on these principles that the original
hieroglyphics, based on the prime elements of geometry,
corresponded to the constitutive and essential laws of
forms, determined by alternating or combined move-
ments, which, in their turn, were determined by equili-
bratory attractions. Simples were distinguished from
composites by their external figures ; and by the corre-
spondence between figures and numbers it became possible
to make a mathematical classification of all substances
revealed by the lines of their surfaces. At the root of
these endeavours, which are reminiscences of Edenic
science, there is a whole world of discoveries awaiting
the sciences. Paracelsus had divined them, Crollius in-
dicates them, another who shall follow will realise and
provide the demonstration concerning them. What
seemed the folly of yesterday will be the genius of to-
morrow, and progress will hail the sublime seekers who
first looked into this lost and recovered world, this
Atlantis of human knowledge.
The beginning of the seventeenth century was the
great epoch of alchemy; it was the period of Philip
Muller, John Torneburg, Michael Maier,Ortelius,Poterius,
Samuel Norton, Baron de Beausoleil, David Planis Campe,
Jean Duchesne, Robert Fludd, Benjamin Mustapha,
D'Espagnet, the Cosmopolite — who is in the first rank —
de Nuisement,who translated and published the Cosmo-
polite's writings, John Baptist van Helmont, Eirenasus
Philalethes, Rodolph Glauber, the sublime shoemaker
Jacob B^hme.^ The chief among these initiates were
* Some of these names are exceedingly obscure, and no importance
attaches to their literary remains. Philip Muller wrote Miracula et
Mysteria Medico-Chymicay 1614. It was printed eight times at various
places. Of John Torneburg I have no record. Ortelius was a commen-
tator on Sendivogius ; Michael Poterius or Potier was the author of ten
alchemical tracts, but I have never heard that they were in estimation
among lovers of the art. The Baron de Beausoleil was still more volu-
minous and is better known. The works of David de Planis Campe
357
The History of Magic
devoted to the researches of Transcendental Magic, but
they concealed most carefully that detested name under
the veil of Hermetic experiments. The Mercury of the
Wise which they desired to discover and hand on to
their disciples was the scientific and religious synthesis,
the peace which abides in the sovereign unity. The
mystics themselves were but blind believers in the true
illuminatiy while illuminism, properly so called, was the
universal science of light.
In the spring of 1623 the following strange procla-
mation was placarded through the streets of Paris : ** We
who are the authorised messengers of the Brothers of the
Rosy Cross, making visible and invisible sojourn in this
town, by the grace of the Most High, towards Whom
the hearts of sages turn, do give instruction, without
external means, in speaking the language of the countries
wherein we dwell,^ and do rescue men who are our
fellow-workers from terror and from death. If anyone
shall seek us out of mere curiosity, he will never com-
municate with us ; but if he be actuated by an earnest
desire to be inscribed on the register of our fraternity,
we, who are discerners of thoughts, will make manifest
to such an one the truth of our promises, so only that
we do not disclose the place of our abode, since thought
in its union with the firm will of the reader shall be suffi-
cient to make us known to him and him likewise to us.''
Public opinion took hold of this mysterious manifesto,
and if anyone asked openly who were those Brothers of
the Rosy Cross, an unknown personage would perchance
take the inquirer apart, and say to him gravely * : " Pre-
were collected into a folio in 1646 ; he is regarded as an alchemical
dreamer. Duchesne was Sieur de la Violette^ and his writings are in six
volumes. Benjamin Mustapha, or rather Mussaphia, wrote on potable
gold. The other names are known to science, as Levi would express it,
and are famous therein.
^ The sum of this intimation is a little obscure. See my Real Htstofy
of the Rosicrucians^ pp. 388-390, for various versions of the proclamation.
" I have been unable to find the authority for this discourse, as a
whole, but some fragments of it are cited by Gabriel Naude.
358
The Adepts a7id the Priesthood
destined to the reformation which must take place
speedily in the whole universe, the Rosicrucians are
depositaries of supreme wisdom, and as undisturbed
possessors of all gifts of Nature, they can dispense these
at pleasure. In whatsoever place they may be, they know
all things which are going on in the rest of the world
better than if they were present amongst them ; they are
superior to hunger and thirst and have neither age nor
disease to fear. They can command the most powerful
spirits and genii. God has covered them with a cloud
to protect them from their enemies, and they cannot be
seen except by their own consent — had anyone eyes
more piercing than those of the eagle. Their general
assemblies are held in the pyramids of Egypt ; but, even
as the rock whence issued the spring of Moses, these
pyramids proceed with them into the desert and will
follow them until they enter the Promised Land."
359
CHAPTER VI
SOME MAGICAL PROSECUTIONS
The Greek author of the allegorical Tablet of Gebes
gives expression to this admirable conclusion: *' There
is one only real good to be desired, and this is wisdom ;
there is but one evil to fear, and it is madness."
Moral evil, wickedness and crime are indeed and literally
mania. Father Hilarion Tissot has therefore our heart-
felt sympathy when he proclaims without ceasing in his
extravagantly daring pamphlets that in place of punishing
criminals we must take them under our charge and cure
them. But, sympathy notwithstanding reason rises in
protest against excessively charitable interpretations of
crime, the consequence of which would be to destroy the
sanction of morality by disarming law. We liken mania
to intoxication, and seeing that the latter is nearly always
voluntary, we applaud the wisdom of judges who punish
the misdemeanours and crimes committed in the state of
drunkenness, not regarding the voluntary loss of reason
as an excuse. There may come even a day when the
self-induced condition will be counted as an aggravating
circumstance and when the intelligent being who by his
own act sets himself outside reason will find that he is
also outside the pale of law. Is not law the reason of
humanity ? Woe to him who gets drunk, whether with
wine, pride, hatred, or even love. He becomes blind,
unjust, the sport of circumstance ; he is a walking
scourge and living fatality ; he may slay or violate ; he is
an unchained fool, and let him be denounced as such.
Society has the right of self-defence ; it is more than a
right, it is duty, for society has children.
360
The Adepts and the Priesthooa
These reflections are prom pted by the magical prosecu-
tions of which we have to give some account. The
Church and Society have been too often charged with
the judicial murder of fools. We admit that the sorcerers
were fools, but theirs was the folly of perversity. If some
innocent but diseased persons have perished among them,
these things are misfortunes for which neither Society
nor the Church can be held responsible. Every man
who is condemned according to the laws of his country
and the judicial forms of his time is condemned justly,
his possible innocence being henceforth in the hands of
God : before men he is and must remain guilty.
In a remarkable romance, called The Sorceresses* Sab-
bath,^ Ludwig Tieck depicts a holy woman, a poor old
creature outworn by macerations, mentally enfeebled by
fasts and prayers, who, being full of horror at sorcerers,
yet disposed by excess of humility to accuse herself of all
crimes, ends in believing that she is a witch, confesses it,
is convicted by error and prejudgment, and finally is
burnt alive. What would such a history prove, sup-
posing that it were true ? Neither more nor less than
the possibility of a judicial blunder. But if such mis-
takes are possible in fact they cannot be so in equity,
or what would become of human justice? Socrates
condemned to death might have had recourse to flight
and his own judges would have furnished the means, but
he respected the laws and resolved therefore to die.
The severity of certain sentences must be blamed to
the laws and not the tribunals of the middle ages. Was
Gilles de Laval, whose crimes and their punishment have
been narrated, condemned unjustly, and must he be
absolved as a fool } Were those horrible imbeciles inno-
cent who composed philtres from the fat of little children ^
Moreover, Black Magic was the general mania of this
unfortunate epoch. By their incessant application to
* There does not appear to be a story with this title either in The
Pkantasus or elsewhere in the works of Tieck.
361
The History of Magic
questions of sorcery, the very judges occasionally ended
by thinking that they also had committed the same
crimes. The plague became epidemic in many localities
and executions seemed to multiply the guilty.
Demonographers like Delancre, Delrio, Sprenger,
Bodin, and Torreblanca give reports of many prosecutions,
the details of which are equally tedious and revolting. The
condemned creatures were mostly hallucinated and idiotic,
but they were wicked in their idiocy and dangerous in
their hallucination. Erotic passion, greed and hatred
were the chief causes which brought about disorder in
their reason : they were indeed capable of anything.
Sprenger says that sorceresses were in league with mid-
wives to secure dead bodies of new-born children. The
midwives killed these innocents at the very moment of
their birth, driving long needles into the brain. The
babe was said to have been still-born and was buried as
such ; on the night following, the stryges dug up the
ground and removed the corpse, which they stewed in a
pan with narcotic and poisonous herbs, afterwards dis-
tilling this human gelatine. The liquor did duty as an
elixir of long life, and the solid part — pounded and
incorporated with soot and the grease of a black cat —
was used for magical rubbing. The stomach turns with
loathing at such abominable revelations, and pity is
silenced by anger ; but when one refers to the trials them-
selves, sees the credulity and cruelty of judges, the lying
promises of mercy employed to extract admissions, the
atrocious tortures, obscene examinations, shameful and
ridiculous precautions, and finally the public execution,
with the derisive ministrations of a priesthood which
surrendered to the secular arm and asked mercy on
those whom it had just condemned to death, amidst all
this chaos one is forced to conclude that religion alone
rests holy, but that human beings are all and equally
either idiots or scoundrels.
In the year 1598 a priest of Limousin, named Pierre
362
The Adepts and the Priesthood
Aupetit, was burned alive for ridiculous confessions
extracted from him by torture.^ In 1599 a woman
named Antide CoUas was burned at Dole because there
was something abnormal in her sexual conformation, and
it was regarded as explicable only by a shameful inter-
course with Satan. Repeatedly put to .the torture,
stripped, scrutinised by doctors and judges, overwhelmed
with shame and suffering, the unfortunate being con-
fessed everything that she might somehow end it
all.^ Henri Boguet, judge of Saint-Claude, relates how
he caused a woman to be tortured as a sorceress because
there was a piece missing from the cross of her rosary,
and it was a certain sign of witchcraft in the view of this
ferocious maniac. A child of twelve years, brought up
by the inquisitors, accused his own father of taking him
to the Sabbath. The father died in prison as the result
of his sufferings, and it was proposed to burn the boy,
which was opposed by Boguet^ — who made a virtue of
the clemency. Rollande de Vernois, thirty-five years
old, was imprisoned in such a freezing dungeon that she
promised to admit herself guilty of Magic if she might
be allowed to go near a fire. As soon as she felt its
warmth she fell into frightful convulsions, accompanied
by fever and delirium. In this condition she was put to
the torture, made every required statement, and was
dragged in a dying condition to the stake. A storm
broke out, extinguished the fire, and thereupon Boguet
gloated over the sentence which he had pronounced, since
she who in appearance was thus protected by heaven must
really and incontestably be aided by the devil. This
same judge burnt Pierre Gaudillon a.id Pierre le Gros for
^ See Pierre De Lancre \ Tableau de P Jnconstancc des Demonsy
Book VI., Discourse 4. But Eliphas Levi seems to have followed the
summary account of Garinet.
- The account is in Bodin and in the record of Henri Boguet. Her
physical peculiarity is described as un trou qu^elle avait au dessous de
sa parti gorricre. The worlj of Boguet is entitled Discours Exdcrables
des Sora'erSy 1603. It is exceedingly rare.
363
The History of Magic
travelling by night, the one in the form of a hare and the
other in that of a wolf
But the prosecution which caused the greatest stir at
the beginning of the seventeenth century was that of
Messire Louis Gaufridi, cure of the parish of Accoules,
at Marseilles. The scandal of this affair created a fatal
precedent, which was only followed too faithfully. It
was a case of priests accusing a priest, of a minister
dragged before a tribunal of his associates in the ministry.
Constantine had said that if he found a priest dishonour-
ing his calling by some shameful sin he would cover him
with his own purple, which was a beautiful and royal
saying, for the priesthood ought to be stainless, even as
justice is infallible in the presence of public morality.^
In December 1610 a young woman of Marseilles
went on a pilgrimage to Sainte-Baume in Provence, and
there fell into ecstasy and convulsions. She was named
Magdelaine de la Palud. Louise Capeau, another devotee,
was similarly seized some short time after.^ The Domini-
cans and Capuchins believed that it was possession by the
devil and had recourse to exorcisms. The result was
that Magdelaine de la Palud and her fellow-victim pre-
sented that spectacle which was renewed so often a
century later during the epidemic of convulsions. They
screamed, writhed, begged to be beaten and trampled
under foot. One day six men walked successively over
the breast of Magdelaine without the slightest suffering
on her part. While in this state she made confession of
the most extraordinary licentiousness, saying that she had
given herself, body and soul, to the devil, to whom she
had been affianced by a priest named Gaufridi.^ So far
from incarcerating the distracted girl, she obtained a
* The prosecution and execution of secular priests and monks recur
frequently throughout the annals of sorcery.
^ The names appear to have been Madeleine de Mandol, daughter of
the Seigneur de la Palud and Louise Capel.
^ The actual charges were {a) that Madeleine was seduced by Gaufridi
when she was nine years old, {b) that he had taken her to the Sabbath,
(r) that he had sent her 666 devils. To Louise he had sent four only.
The Adepts and the Priesthood
hearing, and the exorcising monks despatched three
Capuchins to Marseilles for the purpose of secretly
acquainting the ecclesiastical superiors with the state of
affairs at Sainte-Baume, the object, if possible, being to
bring the .cur6 Gaufridi thither and confront him with
the supposed demons.^
Furthermore, the monks put on record the infernal
inspirations of the two hysterics, which were discourses
full of ignorant and fanatical devotion, presenting religion
as this was understood by the exorcists themselves. In a
word, the possessed women seemed to be relating the
dreams of those who exorcised them : it was precisely
the phenomena of table-rapping and mediums in our own
days. The devils assumed names not less incongruous
than those of the spirits in America ; they declaimed
against printing and books, delivering sermons worthy of
the most fervent and illiterate Capuchins. In the presence
of demons made in their own image and their own like-
ness, the fathers were confirmed in the fact of the
possession and in the veracity of the infernal spirits.
The phantoms of their diseased imaginations assumed
bodily shape and living manifestation in the two women,
whose obscene admissions at once stimulated their
curiosity and their indignation, full of secret lust. Such
were their dispositions when the unhappy Louis Gaufridi
was at length brought before them.
Gaufridi was an all too worldly priest, of agreeable
countenance, weak character and more than dubious
morality.^ He had been the confessor of Magdelaine de
la Palud and had inspired her with an insatiable passion,
which, being changed by jealousy into hatred, became a
fatality and drew the unfortunate priest into its whirl-
pool of madness, by which he was carried ultimately to
the stake. Whatsoever was said by the accused in his
^ See V Histoire Ad7mrable de la Possession et de la Conversion d^une
Pinitente sMuite par U7i Magicien^ by the Inquisitor Michaelis, 1612.
* He was a priest of Marseilles and cur6 of Accoules.
365
The History of Magic
own defence was turned against him. He called on God
and Christ Jesus, on the Blessed Mother of Christ and
the precursor St. John Baptist ; but they answered : You
are excellent at reciting the Litanies of the Sabbath. By
God, you understand Lucifer; by Jesus Christ, Beelzebub;
by the Holy Virgin, the apostate mother of Antichrist ;
by St. John Baptist, the false prophet and precursor of
Gog and Magog.
Gaufridi was put to the torture and promised mercy
if he would sign the declarations of Magdelaine de la
Palud. Distracted, circumvented, broken, the poor
priest signed whatever was required ; it was sufficient for
his burning, and this was the object in view.^ This also
was the frightful spectacle which the Provencal Capuchins
gave to the people as a lesson in violating the privileges
of the sanctuary. They shewed how priests arc killed,
and the people remembered later on. A rabbi who wit-
nessed the prodigies which went before the destruction
of Jerusalem by Titus exclaimed : ** O Holy Temple,
what is it that possesses thee, and why frighten thyself in
this manner .? *' Neither Chair of Peter nor bishops pro-
tested against the murder of Gaufridi, but the eighteenth
century was to come, bringing the Revolution in its wake.
One of the possessed women ^ who had destroyed the
cur6 of Accoules testified that the demon was leaving
her to prepare the murder of another priest, whom she
named prophetically in advance and in the absence of
all personal knowledge: this was Urbain Grand ier. It
was then the reign of that terrible Cardinal de Richelieu,
for whom absolute authority alone could guarantee the
salvation of states ; unfortunately his tendencies were
political and subtle rather than truly Christian. One
* The confession included : (i) Visions of Lucifer, (2) compact with
him, (3) obtaining the love of women by breathing upon them, (4) visit-
ing the Black Sabbath, (5) celebration of Black Masses, &c.
* Louise is heard of no further in the history of the period. Madeleine
was cast out by her family and lived on alms at Avignon, till in 1653
the Parliament of Aix condemned her to perpetual seclusion.
366
The Adepts and the Priesthood
limitation which characterised this great man was a
certain narrowness of heart, which made him sensible
to personal offence and also implacable in revenge. And
further, that which he was least ready to pardon in talent
was independence ; while he preferred men of parts for
auxiliaries rather than flatterers, he took a certain
pleasure in destroying whatsoever desired to shine apart
from him. His ambition was to dominate ail ; Father
Joseph was his right hand and Laubardemont his left.
There was then in the provinces, at Loudun, an
ecclesiastic of remarkable genius and exalted character,
possessed also of learning and talent but lacking in
circumspection. Made to please multitudes and attract
the sympathies of the great, he might on occasion have
become a dangerous partisan ; protestantism was at that
period bestirring in France, and the cur^ of St. Peter's
at Loudun, predisposed to the new ideas by his dislike
of ecclesiastical celibacy, might prove at the head of such
a party a preacher more brilliant than Calvin and not
less daring than Luther. He was named Urbain Grandier.
Serious differences with his bishop had already given
instances of his ability and his inflexible character, but
by mischance it was maladroit ability, since from enemies
who were powerful he had appealed to the King and
not, unhappily, to the Cardinal. The King held that
he was right, but it remained for the Cardinal to teach
him how far he was wrong. Grandier meanwhile had
gone back in triumph to Loudun, and had indulged
in the unclerical display of entering the town bearing
a branch of laurel. From that time he was lost.^
The Lady-Superior of the Ursuline nuns at Loudun
was named Mother Jeanne des Anges in religion, other-
^ The historical facts are that Grandier insisted on one occasion in
taking precedence of Richelieu, then Bishop of Lugon and in disgrace
at Coussay. It is not even quite clear that the priest appealed to the
King, but he was involved in much litigation on charges of immorality.
It is just, however, to add that, according to Garinet, Grandier went to
Paris and pleaded his cause before the King.
367
The History of Magic
wise, Jeanne de Belfiel, grand-daughter of the Baron
dc Cose. She could not be termed fervent in piety,
and her convent was not to be ranked among the
strictest in the country; in particular, nocturnal scenes
took place which were attributed to spirits.^ Relatives
withdrew boarders, and the house was on the point of
being denuded of all resources. Grandier was responsible
for certain intrigues and was a little careless regarding
them, while he was much too public a character for the
idleness of a small town not to make a noise over his
shortcomings. The pupils of the Ursulines heard them
discussed mysteriously by their parents ; the nuns spoke
of them, deploring the scandal and dwelling over much
upon him through whom it arose; of that which they
talked by day they dreamed by night; and so it came
about that at night they saw him appear in their dormi-
tories under circumstances which were conformable with
his alleged morals; they uttered cries, believed them-
selves obsessed, and in this manner the devil was let
loose among them.
The directors of the nuns, who were mortal enemies
of Grandier, did not fail to perceive the advantage they
could draw from the affair in the interests of their
rancour and in those of the convent.^ They began to
perform exorcisms — at first privately and afterwards
in public. The friends of Grandier felt that there
was a plot hatching, and were anxious that he should
exchange his benefice, in order to leave Loudun, believing
that everything would quiet down when he was gone.
But Grandier was brave and could not tolerate yielding to
calumny ; he remained therefore and was arrested one
morning as he entered his church, clothed in sacerdotal
vestments. He was treated forthwith as a State prisoner;
^ The first victim of the phenomena appears to have been the Lady
Superior.
* The director of the convent was named Mignon, and he called to
his assistance not only certain Carmelites but a secular priest of the
district, who was a great believer in diabolical interventions.
368
The Adepts and the Priesthood
his papers were seized, seals were placed on his effects,
and he was conducted, under a strong guard, to the
fortress at Angers. Meanwhile a dungeon was prepared
for him at Loudun which seemed intended for a wild
beast rather than a man. Richelieu, informed of every^
thing, had despatched Laubardemont to make an end of
Grandier and forbade the parliament to take cognisance
of the affair.
If the conduct of the Cure of Saint-Pierre had been
that of a worldling, the demeanour of Grandier, a
prisoner on a charge of Magic, was that of a hero and
a martyr : so does adversity reveal great souls, and it is
much easier to withstand suffering than prosperity. He
wrote to his mother : " I bear my affliction with patience
and pity yours more than my own. I am very unwell,
having no bed ; try to have mine brought me ; for if the
body does not rest the mind gives way. Send me also
my breviary, a bible, and St. Thomas for my consolation.
For the rest, do not grieve; I hope that God will
vindicate my innocence.'' ^
There is no question that God does sooner or later
take the part of persecuted innocence, but He does not
invariably deliver it from enemies on earth, save indeed
by death. This lesson was about to be learned by
Grandier. On our own part, do not let us represent
men worse than they are in fact ; his enemies did not
believe in his innocence ; they pursued him with fury,
but he whom they pursued was for them a great
criminal.
The phenomena of hysteria were little understood at
the time, and somnambulism was quite unknown; the
convulsions of nuns ; their bodily motions exceeding ail
normal human power; their astonishing evidences of
second sight were things of a nature to convince the
least credulous. A well known atheist of the day, being
the Sieur de Keriolet, counsellor in the parliament of
^ This letter is quoted by Garinet, pp. 218, 219.
369 2 A
The History of Magic
Brittany, came to witness the exorcisms and to deride
them. The nuns, who had never seen him, addressed
him by name and published sins which he supposed to
be unknown to anyone. He was so overwhelmed that
he passed from one extreme to another, like all hot-
headed natures ; he shed tears, made his confession and
dedicated his remaining days to the strictest asceticism.
The sophistry of the exorcists of Loudun was that
absurd unreason which M. de Mirville has the courage
to sustain at the present day : the devil is the author of
all phenomena which cannot be explained by known laws
of Nature. To this illogical maxim they joined another
which was, so to speak, an article of faith : the devil who
has been duly exorcised is compelled to speak the truth
and can therefore be admitted as a witness in the cause
of justice.
The unfortunate Grandier was not therefore delivered
into the hands of malefactors but rather of raving
maniacs, who, strong in their rectitude of conscience,
gave the fullest publicity to this incredible prosecution.
Such a scandal had never afflicted the church — howling,
writhing nuns, making the most obscene gestures, blas-
pheming, striving to cast themselves on Grandier like
the Bacchantes on Orpheus ; the most sacred things of
religion mixed up with this hideous spectacle and drawn
in the filth thereof; amidst all Grandier alone calm,
shrugging his shoulders and defending himself with
dignity and mildness; in fine, pallid, distraught judges,
sweating profusely, and Laubardemont in his red robe,
hovering over the conflict, like a vulture awaiting a
corpse : such was the prosecution of Urbain Grandier.
Let us say for the honour of humanity that one is
compelled to assume good faith in exorcists and judges
alike, for such a conspiracy as would be involved in the
legal murder of the accused is happily impossible. Mon-
sters arc as uncommon as heroes ; the mass is composed
of mediocrities, equally incapable of great virtues and
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The Adepts and the Priesthood
great crimes. The holiest persons of the day believed
in the possession at Loudun ; even St. Vincent de Paul
was not unacquainted with its history and was asked to
give his opinion about it. Richelieu himself, though he
might in any case have found some way of getting rid
of Grandier, ended by believing him guilty. His death
was the crime arising from the ignorance and prejudice of
the period ; it was a catastrophe rather than a murder.
We spare our readers the details of his tortures : he
remained firm, resigned, patient, although confessing
nothing ; he did not even affect to despise his judges
but prayed mildly for the exorcists to spare him : '* And
you, my fathers," he said to them, " abate the rigour of
my torments, and reduce not my soul to despair."
Through this moan of complaining nature, one discerns
all the meekness of the Christian who forgives. To hide
their emotion, the exorcists replied with invectives, and
the executioners wept.^ Three nuns, in one of their
lucid moments, cast themselves before the tribunal, crying
that Grandier was innocent, but it was believed that the
devil was speaking by their mouth," and their declaration
only hastened the end. Urbain Grandier was burnt alive
on August 1 8, 1634. He was patient and resigned to
the end. When he was taken from the cart, his legs
being broken, he fell heavily face down on the earth
without uttering a single cry or groan. A Franciscan,
named Father Griliau, squeezed through the crowd and
raised up the sufferer, whom he embraced weeping : " I
bring you," said he, ''the blessing of your mother: she
and I pray God for you." '' Thank you, my father,"
^ Notwithstanding the application of what was called the ordinary
and extraordinary torture, no confession of guilt in respect of the charges
was ever extracted from Grandier, who indeed refused to reply. Eliphas
Levi's picture of his deportment is throughout accurate as well as admir-
ably told.
^ This took place as stated and, moreover, the inhabitants of the
town, after a meeting in the town hall, wrote to the King complaining
of the pretence, absurdity and vexation of the process. vSee Garinel,
Pieces Justificatives^ No. XVI.
The History of Magic
answered Grandier; ''you alone pity me; console my
poor mother and be a son unto her.'* The provost's
lieutenant, deeply affected, then said to him : " Sir, for-
give me the part I am compelled to take in your
anguish." And Grandier answered : *' You have not
offended me and are obliged to fulfil the duties com-
mitted to your charge." They had promised to strangle
him before the burning, but when the executioner sought
to tighten the rope it proved to be knotted, and the
unfortunate Cure de St. Pierre fell alive into the flames.
The chief exorcists. Fathers Tranquille and Lactance,
died soon after in the delirium of violent frenzy ; Father
Surin, who succeeded them, became imbecile ; Manoury,
the surgeon who assisted at the torturing of Grandier,
died haunted by the phantom of his victim. Laubarde-
mont lost his son in a tragical manner and fell into
disgrace with his master ; the nuns remained idiots. So
is it true that the question was one of a terrible and
contagious malady, the mental disease of false zeal and
false devotion. Providence punishes people by their own
faults and instructs them by the sad consequences of
their errors.
Ten years after the death of Grandier, the Loudun
scandals were renewed in Normandy, where the nuns of
Louviers accused two priests of having bewitched them.
Of these priests, one was already dead, but they violated
the sanctity of the tomb to disinter his corpse. The
details of the possession were identical with those of
Loudun and Sainte-Baume. The hysterical women trans-
lated into foul language the nightmares of their directors.
Both priests were condemned to the flames, and — to in-
crease the horror — a living man and a corpse were bound
to the same stake. The punishment of Mezentius, that
fiction of a pagan poet, came so to be realised by Christians ;
a Christian people assisted coldly at the sacrilegious execu-
tion, and the ministers did not realise that in thus pro-
faning at once the priestly office and the dead, they gave
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T^he Adepts and the Priesthood
a frightful precedent to impiety. When the call came,
the eighteenth century arrived to extinguish the fires with
the blood of priests, and, as it happens almost invariably,
the good paid for the wicked. At the beginning of that
century the burning of human beings still proceeded ;
though faith was dead, hypocrisy abandoned the youthful
Labarre to the most horrible tortures because he refused
to uncover when a procession went by. Voltaire was
then in evidence and conscious in his heart of a vocation
like that of Attila. While human passions were pro-
faning religion, God sent this new destroyer to remove
religion from a world which was no longer worthy of it.
In 173 1, a young woman of Toulon, named Catherine
Cadiere, accused her confessor, the Jesuit Girard, of
seduction and Magic. She was a stigmatised ecstatic
who had long passed as a saint. Her history is one of
lascivious swoons, secret flagellations and lewd sensa-
tions. Where is the sink of infamy with mysteries
comparable to those of celibate imagination disordered
by dangerous mysticism } The woman was not believed
on her mere word and Father Girard escaped condemna-
tion ; the scandal for this reason was not less great,
but the noise which it made was echoed by a burst of
laughter : we have said that Voltaire was among us.
Superstitious people till then had explained extra-
ordinary phenomena by the intervention of the devil and
of spirits ; equally absurd on its own part, the school of
Voltaire, in the face of all evidence, denied the pheno-
mena themselves. It was said by the one side that
whatsoever we cannot explain comes from the devil ; the
answer on the other side was, that the things which we
cannot explain do not exist. By reproducing under
analogous circumstances the same series of eccentric and
wonderful facts. Nature protested in the one case against
presumptuous ignorance and in the other against deficient
science.
Physical disturbances have, in all times, accompanied
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The History of Magic
certain nervous maladies ; fools, epileptics, cataleptics,
victims of hysteria have exceptional faculties, are subject
to infectious hallucinations and produce occasionally, in
the atmosphere or in surrounding objects, certain com-
motion? and derangements. He who is hallucinated
exteriorises his dreams and is tormented by his own
shadow ; the body is surrounded with its own reflections,
distorted by the sufFerings of the brain ; the subject
beholds his own image in the Astral Light ; the powerful
currents of that light, acting like a magnet, displace and
overturn furniture ; noises are then heard and voices
sound as in dreams. These phenomena, so often re-
peated at this day that they have become vulgar, were
attributed by our fathers to phantoms and demons.
Voltairian philosophy found it more easy to deny them,
treating the ocular witnesses of the most incontestable
facts as so many imbeciles and idiots.
What, for example, is better accredited than the
extraordinary convulsions at the grave of Paris the
deacon, or at the meetings of Saint-M^dard ecstatics.f^
What is the explanation of the strange bufFetings
demanded by the convulsionaries ? Blows rained by
thousands on the head, compressions which would have
crushed a hippopotamus, torsions of breasts with iron
pincers, even crucifixion with nails driven into hands
and feet ? And then the superhuman contortions and
levitations } The followers of Voltaire refused to see
anything but sport and frolic therein ; the Jansenists
cried miracle ; the true Catholics sighed ; science which
should have intervened, and that only, to explain the
fantastic disease, held aloof. It is to her nevertheless
that there now belong the Ursulines of Loudun, the
nuns of Louviers, the convulsionaries and the American
mediums. The phenomena of magnetism have placed
science on the path of new discoveries, and the coming
chemical synthesis will lead our physicians to a know-
ledge of the Astral Light. When this universal force
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The Adepts and the Priesthood
IS once known, what will prevent them from determining
the strength, number and direction of its magnets ? A
revolution will follow in science and there will be a
return to the Transcendental Magic of Chaldea.
Much has been talked about the presbytery of Cide-
ville ; De Mirville, Gougenot Desmousseaux and other
uncritical believers have seen in the strange occurrences
which took place therein a contemporary revelation of
the devil ; but the same things happened at Saint-Maur
in 1706, and thither all Paris flocked. There were great
rappings on walls, beds rocked without being touched,
other furniture was displaced. The manifestations finished
in a climax during which the master of the house, a
young man of twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and a
person of weak constitution, fell into a deep swoon and
believed that he heard spirits speaking to him at great
length, though he could never repeat subsequently a
single word that they said.
One history of an apparition at the beginning of the
eighteenth century may here follow ; the simplicity of the
account proves its authenticity ; there are certain charac-
teristics of truth which cannot be simulated by inventors.
A pious priest of Valognes, named Bezuel, was invited
to dinner on January 7, 1708? by a lady related to the
Abbe de Saint-Pierre, the Abbe being also of the com-
pany, and the priest recounted, at their request, the ap-
pearance of one of his deceased comrades in open day, some
twelve years previously. In 1695, ^^ ^^^ them that
he was a young scholar, about fifteen years old and that
he was acquainted with two lads, sons of Abaqu^ne, a
solicitor, who were scholars like himself. " The elder
was my own age and the other, who was some eighteen
months younger, was named Desfontaines ; we walked
together and shared' our amusements ; and whether or
not Desfontaines had greater friendship for me, or was
more lively, more affable, more intelligent than his
brother, I know that I cared for him more. We were
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The History of Magic
wandering in the cloister of the Capucins, in 1696,
when he told me that he had been reading a story of
two friends who had promised one another that which-
ever of them died first should bring news of his condi-
tion to him who survived ; that one of them who did
pass away redeemed his pledge and told the survivor
astonishing things. Desfontaines then said that he had
a favour to ask me, which was to make a similar promise,
he doing likewise on his own part. I was, however,
unwilling and indeed declined the proposal ; several
months passed away, during which he recurred frequently
to the idea, I always resisting. About August, 1696,
when he was on the point of leaving to continue his
studies at Caen, he pressed me so much, and with tears
in his eyes, that at length I consented. He produced
thereupon two little slips of paper on which he had
written beforehand, one signed with his blood and in
which he promised me, in the event of his death, to
give me news of his state, the other in which I entered
into a similar bond. I pricked my finger, and with the
blood which issued therefrom I signed my own name.
He was delighted to receive the promise and embraced
me with a thousand thanks. Some time after he left,
accompanied by his brother ; the separation was grievous
to botii of us ; we wrote from time to time, and then
there was a silence for the space of six weeks, after
which the event happened that 1 am about to relate. On
July 31, 1697, being a Thursday and a day which I shall
always remember, the late M. de Sortoville, with whom
I lodged and who was always exceedingly good to me,
begged me to go into a meadow adjoining the Franciscan
monastery and help his people in haymaking. I had
not been there for more than a quarter of an hour
when, about half past two, I suddenly felt giddy and
overcome with weakness. It was to no purpose that I
tried to lean on my hay- fork ; I felt obliged to lie down
on the hay and so remained for about half an hour, trying
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The Adepts and the Priesthood
to recover my strength. The feeling passed away but,
having never had such an experience previously, it caused
me some surprise, and I feared that it was the beginning
of an illness. I have no special recollection regarding
the remainder of the day, but on the following night I
slept less than usual.
"At the same hour next day, as I was walking in
the meadow with M. de Saint-Simon, grandson of M. de
Sortoville, then about ten years old, I was overcome in
exactly the same way and sat down in the shade on a
stone. It passed again and we continued our walk ;
nothing further occurred on that day and the next night
I slept scarcely at all. Finally, on the morrow, being
the second day of August, I was In the loft where they
stacked the hay at precisely the same hour, when I was
again seized with a similar giddiness and weakness, but
more serious than before. I swooned and lost all con-
sciousness. One of the servants saw me and asked what
was the matter, to which it is said that I replied, stating
that I had seen what I should have never believed. 1
do not however recollect either the question or answer.
The memory which does remain with me is that I had
seen someone in a state of nakedness to the waist, but
it was not anyone whom I recognised. I was helped
down the ladder ; I held tight to the rungs ; but when I
saw Desfontaines, my comrade, at the foot of the ladder,
the weakness returned, my head fell between two of
the rungs and again I lost consciousness. I was laid
upon a wide beam which served for a bench on the
Grande Place des Capucins ; I saw nothing of M. de
Sortoville nor of his servants, though they were present,
but I observed Desfontaines, still by the foot of the
ladder, signalling for me to come to him, and I drew
back on my seat as if to make room for him. Those
who were by me and whom I did not see, though my
eyes were open, observed this movement. He did not
respond and I rose to go towards him ; he then came
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The History of Magic
forward and taking my left arm in his own right arm,
he led me some paces forward into a quiet street, with
arms still interlocked. The servants thinking that my
giddiness had passed and that I was going about some
business of my own, went back to their work, with the
-exception of one youth, who told M. de Sortoville that
I was talking to myself. He came up to me and heard
me questioning and answering, as he has since told me.
I was there for nearly three quarters of an hour, talking
to Desfontaines, who said : I promised that if I died
before you I would come and tell you. I was drowned
the day before yesterday in the river at Caen. It was
just about this time, and I was walking with some
friends ; it was exceedingly warm, we decided to bathe,
a weakness came over me and I sank to the bottom.
My companion, the Abb6 de Menil-Jean, dived to bring
me up. I caught hold of his leg and as I clung very
tight he may have thought that it was a salmon or he
may have had to come up quickly, but he struck out
so roughly with his leg that I received a blow upon the
chest, throwing me again to the bottom, where the depth
is considerable at that point I
" Desfontaines subsequently told me all that had
happened in their walk and the subjects discussed be-
tween them. 1 was anxious to learn whether he was
saved, whether he was damned, whether he was in pur-
gatory, whether I was myself in a state of grace and
whethef I should follow him speedily ; but he continued
speaking as if he had not heard or refused to listen. I
tried tcr embrace him several times, but I seemed to
embrace nothing ; yet I felt him still holding me tight
by the arm, and when I, attempted to turn away my head,
so as not to see him because of the grief which it caused
me, he tightened his grasp as if to compel me to look as
well as to listen. He seemed taller than when I .had last
seen him and taller even than he was at the time of death,
though he had grown a good deal during the eighteen
378
"The Adepts and the Priesthood
months since we met. I saw him as far as his waist only
and he was naked, his head bare and a white paper twisted
in his beautiful fair hair over the forehead ; the paper had
writing on it, but I could read only the word : IN, &c.
His voice was the same voice ; he seemed neither gay
nor sad, but in a calm and tranquil state. He begged
me on his brother's return to give him certain messages
for his father and mother ; he begged me also to say the
seven penitential psalms, which had been imposed on
him as a penance the previous Sunday and which he had
not yet recited. Finally, he again advised me to speak
to his brother and then bade me farewell, saying as he
went : * Till I see you again,' which was our usual
formula when we parted at the end of a walk. He told
me also that at the time he was drowned his brother, who
was making a translation, regretted having let him go
apart from him, in case of an accident. He described
so well where he was drowned and the tree in the Avenue
de Louvigny on which he had cut some words that two
years afterwards, when in the company of the late
Chevalier de Gotot, one who was with him at the time,
I pointed out the very spot and counting the trees on
one side, as Desfontaines had specified, I went straight to
the tree, there to find the inscription. I learned also
that it was true about the seven psalms which had been
given him as a penance at confession. His brother also
told me that he was writing his translation and reproached
himself for not being with him.
" As a month went by before I was able to do as
Desfontaines asked me in regard to his brother, he ap-
peared to me on two other occasions before dinner in a
country house a few miles away, to which I had been
invited. Feeling unwell, I made an excuse of being tired,
saying that it was nothing and that I should return. I
went into a corner of the garden and Desfontaines re-
proached me for not having spoken to his brother; he
talked to me for a quarter of an hour, but would not
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The History of Magic
answer questions on my own part. The second appear-
ance was in the morning, as I was going to Notre Dame
de la Victoire, but the apparition was for a shorter time ;
he impressed on me about speaking to his brother and
left me repeating : ' Till I see you again ' — still without
answering my questions. One remarkable fact is that I
always had a pain in the arm where he had taken a hold
of me the first time, and it remained till I had spoken
to his brother. For three days I had no sleep owing to
the astonishment in which I was. After the first con-
versation I told M. de Varonville, my schoolfellow and
neighbour, that Desfontaines had been drowned, that he
had appeared to me and told me so. He hurried to his
relations, asking whether this was true ; they had just
had news on the subject but, owing to a misunderstand-
ing, believed that it was the elder boy. He assured me
that he had seen the letter of Desfontaines and he
thought that this was correct ; I maintained that it must
be wrong, for Desfontaines himself had appeared to me.
He went again to his relatives and returned in tears
saying : Mt is only too true.'
" Nothing has happened to me since, and such was
my experience simply. It has been told in many ways,
but I have never related it otherwise than as I do now.
The late Chevalier de Gotot stated that Desfontaines
also appeared to M. de Menil-Jean, but I do not know
him. He is fifty miles from here, near Argentan, and
I can tell you no more."
We should notice the characteristics of dream which
prevail throughout in this vision of a man who is awake,
but in a state of semi-asphyxiation produced by the
emanations of the hay. The astral intoxication following
congestion of the brain will be recognised. The som-
nambulistic condition which followed showed M. Bezuel
the last living reflection left by his friend in the Astral
Light. He was naked and was visible down to the waist
only, because the rest of his body was immersed in the
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The Adepts and the Priesthood
water of the river. The supposed paper in his hair was
probably a handkerchief used to confine his hair when
bathing. Bezuel had further a somnambulistic intuition
of all that took place, and it seemed to him that he was
learning it from the lips of his friend. The friend
appeared neither sad nor gay, an indication of the im-
pression made upon him by an image which was lifeless
and consisting only of reminiscence and reflection. On
the occasion of the first vision, M. Bezuel, intoxicated
by the scent of the hay, fell off the ladder and injured
his arm ; it seemed, with the logic of dreams that his
friend was grasping the arm, and when he came to
himself, he still felt the pain, which is explained quite
naturally by the hurt that he had received. For the
rest, the conversation of the deceased person was simply
retrospective ; there was nothing about death or the
other life, proving once more how impossible is the
barrier which separates this world from the next.
In the prophecy of Ezekiel life is represented by
wheels which turn within one another ; the elementary
forms are symbolised by four beasts, which ascend and
descend with the wheel and pursue one another without
ever overtaking, like the signs of the Zodiac. The
wheels of perpetual movement never return on them-
selves ; forms never go back to the stations which they
have quitted ; to return whence one has come, the entire
circle must have been traversed in a progress always the
same and yet always new. The conclusion is that what-
soever manifests to us in this life is a phenomenon which
belongs to this life and it is not given here below to our
thought, to our imagination, or even to our hallucinations
and our dreams, to overstep even for an instant the
formidable barriers of death.
381
CHAPTER VII
THE MAGICAL ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY
That great Kabalistical association known in Europe
under the name of Masonry appeared suddenly in the
world when revolt against the Church had just succeeded
in dismembering Christian unity. The historians of the
Order are one and all in a difficulty when seeking to
explain its origin. According to some, it derived from a
certain guild of Masons who were incorporated for the
construction of the cathedral of Strasburg. Others refer
its foundation to Cromwell, without pausing to consider
whether the Rites of English Masonry in the days of the
Protector were not more probably developed as a counter-
blast to this leader of Puritanical anarchy. In fine, some
are so ignorant that they attribute to the Jesuits the
maintenance and direction, if not indeed the invention, of
a society long preserved in secret and always wrapped in
mystery.^ Setting aside this last view, which refutes
itself, we can reconcile the others by admitting that the
Masonic Brethren borrowed their name and some emblems
of their art from the builders of Strasburg cathedral, and
that their first public manifestation took place in England,
owing to radical institutions and in spite of Cromwell's
despotism. It may be added that the Templars were
their models, the Rosicrucians their immediate progeni-
tors,^ and the Johannite sectarians their more remote
^ This remark, in which I concur unreservedly, may be noted by
students of Masonic history as an offset against the pretentious nonsense
which has been talked on the subject by French makers of fable and
especially by J. M. Ragon, the dullest and most imbecile of all.
* This opinion is showing signs of recrudescence at the present day,
and it is well to say that there is no evidence to support it.
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T*he Adepts and the Priesthood
ancestors. Their doctrine is that of Zoroaster and of
Hermes, their law is progressive initiation, their principle is
equality — regulated by the hierarchy and universal frater-
nity. They are successors of the school of Alexandria,
as of all antique initiations, custodians of the secrets of
the Apocalypse and the Zohar, Truth is the object of
their worship, and they represent truth as light ; they
tolerate all forms of faith, profess one philosophy,
seek truth only, teach reality, and their plan is to lead
all human intelligence by gradual steps into the domain
of reason. The allegorical end of Freemasonry is the
rebuilding of Solomon's Temple ; the real end is the
restoration of social unity by an alliance between reason
and faith and by reverting to the principle of the hier-
archy,^ based on science and virtue, the path of initiation
and its ordeals serving as steps of ascent. Nothing, it
will be seen, is more beautiful, nothing greater than are
such ideas and dedications ; unhappily the doctrines of
unity and submission to the hierarchy have not been
maintained in universal Masonry. In addition to that
which was orthodox there arose a dissident Masonry, and
all that is worst in the calamities of the French Revolu-
tion were the result of this schism.
Now, the Freemasons have their sacred legend, which
is that of Hiram, completed by another concerning Cyrus
and Zerubbabel. The legend of Hiram is as follows.
When Solomon projected his Temple, he entrusted the
plans to an architect called Hiram. This master-builder,
to ensure order in the work, divided the craftsmen accord-
ing to their degrees of skill. They were a great multi-
tude, and in order to recognise craftsmen, so that they
might be classified according to merit or remunerated in
proportion to their work, he provided Pass- Words and
particular Signs for each of three categories, or otherwise
for the Apprentices, the Companions and the Masters.
^ It may be mentioned that Masonry, wheresoever established, is
elective and not hierarchical.
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The History of Magic
It came about that three Companions coveted the rank of
Master without having earned it by their ability. They
set an ambush at the three chief gates of the Temple,
and when Hiram was issuing from one of them, the first
of these Companions demanded the Master-Word, threat-
ening the architect with his rule. Hiram answered : *' It
is not thus that I received it." Thereupon the Companion
in his fury struck him with the iron tool and gave him
the first wound. The builder fled to the second gate,
where he met with the second Companion, who made
the same demand and received the same answer. On
this occasion Hiram was struck with a square or, as others
say, with a lever. At the third gate there stood the
third assassin, who completed the work with a mallet.
The three companions concealed the corpse under a heap
of rubbish, planted on the improvised grave a branch of
acacia, and then took flight like Cain after the murder of
Abel. Solomon, however, finding that his architect did
not return, sent nine Masters to seek him, when the
branch of acacia revealed the corpse. They drew it from
beneath the rubbish, and as it had laid long therein, they
uttered in so doing a word signifying that the flesh was
falling from the bones. The last offices were rendered
duly to Hiram, and twenty-seven Masters were despatched
subsequently by Solomon in search of the murderers.
The first of these was taken by surprise in a cavern ; a
lamp was burning near him, a stream flowed at his feet
and a dagger lay for his defence beside him. The Master
who had been first to enter recognised the assassin, seized
the weapon and stabbed him with the exclamation Nekam
— a word signifying vengeance. The head was carried
to Solomon, who shuddered at the sight and said to the
avenger : *' Unhappy being, did you not know that I
reserved to myself the right of punishment ? '' Then
all the Masters fell on their knees before the king and
entreated pardon for him whose zeal had carried him
away. The second murderer was betrayed by one with
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The Adepts and the Priesthood
whom he had found an asylum. He was concealed in a
rock near to a burning bush ; a rainbow shone above the
rock, and a dog lay near him. Eluding the vigilance of
the dog, the Masters seized the criminal, bound and
carried him to Jerusalem, where he perished in the utmost
tortures. The third assassin was slain by a lion, and
the beast had to be overcome before the bodylzould be
secured. Other versions say that he defended himself
with a hatchet when the Masters fell upon him, but they
succeeded in disarming him and he was led to Solomon
who caused him to expiate his crime.^
Such is the first legend and its explanation now follows.
Solomon personifies supreme science and wisdom. The
Temple is the realisation and emblem of the hierarchic
reign of truth and reason on earth. Hiram is the man
who, by science and wisdom, has attained empire. He
governs by justice and order, rendering to each according
to his works. Each Degree is in correspondence with a
word, which expresses the sense thereof. For Hiram
the word is one, but it is expressed after three manners.
One is for the Apprentices and can be uttered by them ;
it signifies Nature and is explained by Work. Another
is for the Companions ; in their case it signifies thought
and is explained by Study. The third is for Masters ;
in their mouth it signifies truth and is explained by
Wisdom. As to the word itself, it is used to designate
God, Whose true name is indicible and incommunicable.
Thus there are three degrees in the hierarchy and three
entrances of the Temple ; there are three modes of light
and there are three forces in Nature, which forces are
symbolised by the Rule that measures, the Lever which
lifts and the Mallet which consolidates. The rebellion
of brutal instincts against the hierarchic aristocracy of
wisdom arms itself successfully with these three forces
^ The Legend of Hiram has been told after several manners. English
Masons will see that the present version is utterly incorrect, and it
may be added further that it incorporates reveries borrowed from old
High Grades.
385 2B
The History of Magic
and turns them from their proper uses. There are three
typical rebels — the rebel against Nature, the rebel against
Science and the rebel against Truth. They were repre-
sented in the classical Hades by the three heads of
Cerberus ; in the Bible by Koran, Dathan and Abiram ;
while in the Masonic legend they are distinguished by
names which vary in the different Rites. The first, who
is usually called Abiram, or the murderer of Hiram, is
he who strikes the Grand Master with the rule ; this is
the story of the just man immolated by human passion
under the pretence of law. The second, named Mephi-
bosheth, after a ridiculous and feeble pretender to the
throne of David, attacks Hiram with the lever or the
square. So does the popular square or lever of insensate
equality become an instrument of tyranny in the hands
of the multitude, and assails, still more grievously than
the rule, the royalty of wisdom and virtue. The third
in fine despatches Hiram with a mallet : so act the
brutal instincts when they seek to establish order, in the
name of violence and of fear, by crushing intelligence.^
The branch of acacia over the tomb of Hiram is like
the cross on our altars ; it is a sign of knowledge which
outlives knowledge itself; it is the green sprig which
presages another spring. When men have disturbed in
this manner the order of Nature, Providence intervenes
to restore it, as Solomon to avenge the death of the
Master-Buildcr. He who has struck with the rule shall
perish by the poignard. He who as attacked with the
lever or square shall make expiation-) under the axe of the
law : it is the eternal judgment on regicides. He who
has slain with the mallet shall be the victim of that
power which he misused. He who would slay with the
rule is betrayed by the very lamp which lights him and
by the stream from which he drinks : it is the law of
retaliation. He who would destroy with the lever is
^ The names ascribed to the three assassins are High Grade inven-
tions, and so also is all that follows concerning them.
386
The Adepts and the Priesthood
surprised when his watchfulness fails like a sleeping dog,
and he is given up by his own accomplices, for anarchy
is the mother of treason. He who struck with the mallet
is devoured by the lion, which is a variant of the sphinx
of CEdipus, while he who can conquer the lion shall
deserve to succeed Hiram. The decaying body of the
Builder indicates that forms may change but the spirit
remains. The spring of water in the vicinity of the
first murderer recalls that deluge which punished crimes
against Nature. The burning bush and rainbow which
betray the second assassin typify life and light denouncing
outrage on thought. Finally, the vanquished lion repre-
sents the triumph of mind over matter and the definite
subjection of force to intelligence. From the dawn of
the intellectual travail by which the Temple of unity is
erected, Hiram has been slain often, but ever he has
risen from the dead. He is Adonis destroyed by the
wild boar, Osiris put to death by Typhon, Pythagoras in
his proscription, Orpheus torn to pieces by Bacchantes,
Moses abandoned in the caverns of Mount Nebo, Jesus
crucified by Judas, Caiaphas and Pilate. Now those are
true Masons who seek persistently to rebuild the Temple
in accordance with the plan of Hiram*
Such is the great and the chief legend of Masonry ;
there are others that are no less beautiful and no less
profound ; but we do not feel justified in divulging their
mysteries. Albeit we have received initiation only from
God and our researches,^ we shall keep the secrets of
transcendental Freemasonry as we keep our own secrets.
Having attained by our eflTorts to a grade of knowledge
which imposes silence, we regard ourselves as pledged
by our convictions even more than by an oath. Science
is a noblesse qui oblige and we shall in no wise fail to
deserve the princely crown of the Rosy Cross. We also
believe in the resurrection of Hiram.
^ It is understood that Eliphas L6vi entered Masonry in the ordinary
way, but it is quite true that vital integration therein and real under-
standing thereof are consequences of personal work.
387
The History of Magic
The Rites of Masonry are designed to transmit a
memorial of the legends of initiation and to preserve them
among the Brethren. Now, if Masonry is thus holy and
thus sublime, we may be asked how it came to be pro-
scribed and condemned so often by the Church ; but we
have already replied to this question when its divisions
and profanations were mentioned. Masonry is the Gnosis
and the false Gnostics caused the condemnation of the
true. The latter were driven into concealment, not
through fear of the light, for the light is that which
they desire, that which they seek and adore ; but they
stood in dread of the sacrilegious — that is to say, of false
interpreters, calumniators, the derision of the sceptic, the
enemies of all belief and all morality. Moreover, at the
present day, there are many who think that they are
Masons and yet do not know the meaning of their Rites,
having lost the Key of the Mysteries. They misconstrue
even their symbolical pictures and those hieroglyphic
signs which are emblazoned on the carpets of their
Lodges. These pictures and signs are the pages of a
book of absolute and universal science. They can be
read by means of the Kabalistic keys and hold nothing
in concealment for the initiate who already possesses those
of Solomon.
Masonry has not merely been profaned but has served
as the veil and pretext of anarchic conspiracies depending
from the secret influence of the vindicators of Jacques
de Molay, and of those who continued the schismatic
work of the Temple. In place of avenging the death
of Hiram they have avenged that of his assassins. The
anarchists have resumed the rule, square and mallet,
writing upon them the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
— Liberty, that is to say, for all the lusts. Equality in
degradation and Fraternity in the work of destruction.
Such are the men whom the Church has condemned justly
and will condemn for ever.
388
BOOK VI
MAGIC AND THE REVOLUTION
BOOK VI
MAGIC AND THE REVOLUTION
VAU
CHAPTER I
REMARKABLE AUTHORS OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
China was practically unknown to the outside world
until the end of the seventeenth century, when its vast
empire, explored in part by our missionaries, began to be
revealed by them and appeared like a necropolis of all
sciences in the past. The Chinese may be compared to
a race of mummies; nothing progresses with them, for
they live in the immobility of their traditions, from which
the spirit and the life have long since withdrawn. They
know nothing any longer, but they have a vague recollec-
tion of everything. The genius of China is the dragon
of the Hesperides — which defends the golden apples in the
garden of science. Their human type of divinity, instead
of conquering the dragon, like Cadmus, cowers fascinated
and magnetised by the monster who flashes before it a
changing mirage of its scales. Mystery alone is alive in
China, science is in a state of lethargy, or at least is in a
deep sleep and speaks only in dream. We have said that
the Chinese Tarot is based on the same Kabalistic and
absolute data as the Hebrew Sefher Tetzirah ; but China
has also a hieroglyphical book consisting exclusively of
The History of Magic
combinations of two figures ; this is the Y-Kimy attributed
to the emperor Fo-Hi, and M. de Maison, in his Letters
on China^ states that it is utterly indecipherable. Its
difficulties however are not greater than those of the
Zohar^ of which it appears to be a curious complement
and is indeed a valuable appendix thereto. The Zohar
explains the work of the Balance, or of universal equilib-
rium, and the T^Kim is the hieroglyphic and ciphered
demonstration thereof. The key of the work is a pantacle
known as the Trigrams of Fo-Hi. According to a legend
related in the Vay-Ky^ a collection of great authority in
China, composed by Leon-Tao-Yuen, under the dynasty
of the Soms, some seven or eight hundred years ago, the
emperor Fo-Hi was meditating one day on the bank of
a river about the great secrets of Nature, when he saw a
sphinx come out of the water, meaning an allegorical
animal, having the composite form of a horse and a
dragon. Its head was elongated like that of a horse, it
had four feet and ended in the tail of a serpent ; the
back was covered with scales, on each of which there
shone the symbol of the mysterious Trigrams ; they were
smaller towards the extremities than those on the breast
and back, but were in perfect harmony throughout. The
dragon was reflected in the water but with all its charac-
istics inverted. This serpentine horse, the inspirer or
rather the bearer of inspirations, like the Pegasus of Greek
mythology, that symbol of universal light, or like the
serpent of Kronos, initiated Fo-Hi into universal science.
The Trigrams served as the introduction ; he numbered
the scales and combined the Trigrams in such a manner
that he conceived a synthesis of the sciences compared
and united with one another by the pre-existent and
necessary harmonies of Nature. The tables of the T-
Kim were the result of this marvellous combination.
The numbers of Fo-Hi are the same as those of the
^ It has been called the most ancient of all the Chinese books, being
ascribed to the year 3468 B.C. It consists of 10 chapters.
392
Magic and the Revolution
Kabalah, while his pantacle is analogous to that of
Solomon, as explained already in our Doctrine and Ritual
of Transcendental Magic} His tables correspond to the
thirty-two Paths and the fifty Gates of Light; conse-
quently the T-Kim cannot be obscure for those who
have the key of the Sepher Tetzirah and Zohar}
The science of absolute philosophy has therefore
existed in China ; the Kims are commentaries on this
Absolute which is hidden from the profane, and their
relation to the T-Kim is like that of the Pentateuch of
Moses to the Revelations in the Sepher Dzenioutha, which
is the Book of Mysteries and the key of the Hebrew
Zohar.^ Kong-fu-tzee, or Confucius, was the revealer or
veiler of this Kabalah, the existence of which he might
have denied, to turn the researches of the profane into a
wrong path, just as that learned Talmudist Maimonides
denied the realities of the Key of Solomon. After Con-
fucius came the materialistic Fo, who substituted the
traditions of Indian sorcery for the remnants of Egyptian
Transcendental Magic. The cultus of Fo paralysed the
progress of the sciences in China, and the abortive civili-
sation of this great people collapsed into routine and
stupor.
A philosopher of sagacity and admirable profundity,
the learned Leibnitz, who deserved most assuredly initia-
tion into the supreme truths of absolute science, thought
that he could discern in the T-Kim his own discovery of
the differential calculus, while in the straight and divided
line he recognised the characters i o, employed in his
* See my translation of this work: Transcendental Magic: Its
Doctrine and Ritual^ 1896.
* It will be observed and appreciated at its proper value that Eliphas
L6vi does not attempt to elucidate the Chinese puzzle of which he claims
to possess the key, and the explanation is that if he had known his sub-
ject critically he would not have attempted to create Zoharic analogies
which in the nature of things are non-existent.
^ The Book of Concealed Mystery is not a key to the Zoharj it is one
of the tracts inserted therein and its influence on the text at large is almost
nil.
393
The History of Magic
own calculations. He was on the threshold of the truth,
but, seeing it in only one of its details, he could not
grasp it as a whole.
The most important discoveries on religious antiquities
in China have been the result of theological disputes.^
This came about through the question whether the
Jesuits were justified in permitting the worship of heaven
and ancestral worship among the Chinese who were con-
verted to Christianity — in other words, whether the
educated Chinese regarded their heaven as God or simply
as space and Nature. It was reasonable to have recourse
to the educated themselves and to public good sense, but
these do not constitute theological authorities. There
was therefore much debate, much writing and more in-
triguing ; the Jesuits were fundamentally right but were
wrong in their mode of procedure, with the result that
fresh difficulties were created which have not been yet
overcome and which still continue in China to cost the
blood of our indefatigable martyrs.
Whilst the conquests of religion in Asia were thus
disputed, a great spirit of unrest was agitating Europe ;
the Christian faith seemed on the point of being extin-
guished, though on every side there was a rumour of new
revelations and miracles. A man who had a definite
position in science and in the world otherwise, namely,
Emmanuel Swedenborg, was astonishing Sweden by his
visions, and Germany was swarming with new illuminati.
Dissident mysticism conspired to replace the mysteries of
hierarchic religion by mysteries of anarchy ; a catastrophe
was in preparation and was imminent. Swedenborg, the
most sincere and the mildest among the prophets of false
illuminism, was not for this less dangerous than the
others. As a fact, the pretence that all men are called
* It will be noticed that this remark is not borne out by the instance
which is supposed to illustrate it and that the lucubration on China is a
curious preamble to a study of remarkable authors of the eighteenth
century, who had nothing to do with China.
394
THE GREAT HERMETIC ARCANUM
Facing p. 394
Magic and the Revolution
to communicate immediately with heaven^ replaces
regular religious instruction and progressive initiation
by every divagation of enthusiasm, by all excesses of
imagination and of dream. The intelligent illuminati
felt that religion was a great need of humanity and hence
must never be destroyed ; not only religion itself but the
fanaticism which it carries along with it as a fatal con-
sequence of enthusiasm inspired by ignorance, were,
however, to be used as arms for the overthrow of
hierarchic church authority, they recognising that from
the war of fanaticism there would issue a new hierarchy,
of which they hoped to be founders and chiefs. ''You
shall be as gods, knowing all without having the
trouble of learning anything ; you shall be as kings,
possessing everything without the trouble of acquiring
anything." Such, in a summary form, are the promises
of the revolutionary spirit to envious multitudes. The
revolutionary spirit is the spirit of death ; it is the old
serpent of Genesis, which notwithstanding it is the father
of movement and of progress, seeing that generations are
renewed only by death. It is for this reason that the
Indians worship Siva, the pitiless destroyer, whose sym-
bolical form was that of physical love and material
generation.
The system of Swedenborg is no other than the
Kabalah, minus the principle of hierarchy ; ^ it is the temple
without key-stone and without base ; it is a vast edifice,
fortunately all airy and phantastic, for had anyone
attempted to realise it on this earth it would collapse
^ Emmanuel Swedenborg never gave expression to this view, and in
respect of the criticism as a whole, it must be remarked that the com-
munications which came to him came unawares, his psychic states not
being self-induced.
^ The Kabalah has no principle of the hierarchy ; its one counsel is
the study of the Doctrine and that study continually brought forward
new developments of the deep meanings which lay behind {a) the Law,
{b) the prophets and {c) the historical books of the Old Testament.
The Zohar presupposes throughout a widely diffused knowledge of its
Secret Doctrine, as already intimated.
395
T*he History of Magic
upon the head of the first child who sought, not indeed
to overthrow it, but merely to lean against one of its
chief pillars. To organise anarchy is the problem which
the revolutionaries have undertaken to solve, and it is
with them for ever ; it is the rock of Sisyphus which will
invariably fall back upon them. To exist for a single
moment they are and will ever be compelled fatally to
improvise a despotism having no other justification than
necessity, and it is one which is blind and violent like
anarchy. Emancipation from the harmonious monarchy
of reason is attained only by passing under the disorderly
dictatorship of folly.
The means proposed indirectly by Swedenborg for
communication with the supernatural world constitute
an intermediate state allied to dream, ecstasy and cata-
lepsy. The illuminated Swede affirmed the possibility of
such a state, without furnishing any intimation as to the
practices necessary for its attainment.^ Perhaps his disci-
ples, in order to supply the omission, might have had
recourse to Indian Ceremonial Magic, when a genius
came forward to complete the prophetic and Kabalistic
intuitions of Swedenborg by a natural thaumaturgy.
This man was a German physician named Mesmer. It
was he who had the glory of rediscovering, apart from
initiation and apart from occult knowledge, the universal
agent of light and its prodigies. His Afhorisms^ which
scholars of his time regarded as a bundle of paradoxes,
will ultimately form a basis for the physical synthesis.^
Mesmer postulated two modes in natural being ; these
are substance and life, producing that fixity and move-
ment which constitute the equilibrium of things. He
^ He was the recipient of a revelation and was not concerned wnth
assisting those whom he addressed to attain the interior states into
which he entered himself. He was bent only on delivering the message
which^he had received.
* Elliphas L^vi refers to a work entitled : Mesmer — Mdmoires et
Aphorismes Suivis des Procidds d Eslotiy 1846. The Aphorisms of
Anton Mesmer have been frequently reprinted.
396
Magic and the Revolution
recognised further the existence of a first matter, which
is fluidic, universal, capable of fixity and motion ; its
fixation determines the constitution of substances, while
its continual motion modifies and renews forms. This
fluidic matter is active and passive ; as passive it indraws
and as active it projects itself. In virtue of this matter
the world and those who dwell therein attract and repel ;
it passes through all by a circulation comparable to that of
the blood. It maintains and renews the life of all beings,
is the agent of their force and may become the instru-
ment of their will. Prodigies are results of exceptional
wills or energies. The phenomena of cohesion and
elasticity, of density or subtlety in bodies, are produced
by various combinations of these two properties in the
universal fluid or first matter. Disease, like all physical
disorders, is owing to a derangement in the normal
equilibrium of the first matter in this or that organised
body. Organised bodies are sympathetic or antipathetic
to one another, by reason of their particular equilibrium.
Sympathetic bodies may cure each other, restoring their
equilibrium mutually. This capacity of bodies to equili-
brate one another by the attraction or projection of the
first matter, was called magnetism by Mesmer, and as it
varies according to the forms in which it acts, he termed
it animal magnetism when he studied its phenomena in
living beings.
Mesmer proved his theory by his experiments, which
were crowned with complete success. Having observed
the analogy between the phenomena of animal magnetism
and those of electricity, he made use oT metallic con-
ductors, connecting with a common reservoir containing
earth and water, so as to absorb and project the two
forces. The complicated apparatus of tubs has now been
abandoned, as it can be replaced by a living chain of
hands superposed upon a circular non-conducting body
like a wooden table, or on silk or wool. He subsequently
applied to living organised beings the processes of metallic
397
The History of Magic
magnetisation and attained certitude as to the reality and
similitude of the phenomena which followed. One step
only was left for him to take, and it was to affirm that
the effects attributed in physics to the four imponderable
fluids are diverse manifestations of one and the same force
differentiated by its usages, and that this force — insepar-
able from the first and universal matter which it sets in
motion — now resplendent, now igneous, now electric,
now magnetic, has but one name, indicated by Moses in
Genesis, when he decribes its manifestation by the^^^ of
the Almighty before all substances and all forms : that
word is THE LIGHT — ni« ^n\
Let us now have the courage to affirm one truth
which will be acknowledged hereafter. The great thing
of the eighteenth century is not the Encyclopedia, not the
sneering and derisive philosophy of Voltaire, not the
negative metaphysics of Diderot and D'Alembert, not
the malignant philanthropy of Rousseau : it is the sym-
pathetic and miraculous physics of Mesmer. Mesmer is
grand as Prometheus ; he has given men that fire from
heaven which Franklin could only direct. There was
wanting to the genius of Mesmer neither the sanc-
tion of hatred nor the consecration of persecution
and insult ; he was hunted out of Germany, ridiculed in
France, which, however, provided him with a fortune,
for his cures were evident, and the patients who went to
him paid him, though they may have stated afterwards
that their restoration was a matter of chance, so that
they might not draw down upon themselves the hostility
of the learned. The authorised bodies did not even so
far honour the thaumaturge as to examine his discovery,
and the great man resigned himself perforce to pass for
a skilful impostor. It was only the really instructed
who were not hostile to mesmerism ; sincerely religious
persons were alarmed by the dangers of the new dis-
covery, while the superstitious cried out at the scandal
and the Magic. The wise foresaw abuses ; the imbecile
398
Magic and the Revolution
would not so much as tolerate the exercise of this marvel-
lous power. Some thought that the miracles of the
Saviour and his saints would be denied in the name of
magnetism ; others wondered how it would fare with the
power of the devil. True religion, notwithstanding, has
nothing to fear from the discovery of truth ; and further,
in putting a limit to human power, does not magnetism
give a new sanction to divine miracles instead of destroying
them ? It follows that the fools will ascribe fewer prodi-
gies to the devil, which will leave them the less opportunity
to exercise their hatred and their rage ; but persons of
real piety will not find this a ground of complaint. The
devil must lose ground when light manifests and ignor-
ance recedes ; but the conquests of science and of light
extend, strengthen and increase more and more our love
of the empire and the glory of God,
399
CHAPTER II
THAUMATURGIC PERSONALITIES OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The eighteenth century was credulous about nothing but
Magic, and the explanation is that vague beliefs are the
religion of souls devoid of true faith. The miracles of
Jesus Christ were denied, while resurrections were ascribed
to the Comte de Saint-Germain. This exceptional per-
sonality was a mysterious theosophist who was credited
with possessing the secrets of the Great Work, and the
manufacture of diamonds and of precious stones. For
the rest, he was a man of the world, agreeable in con-
versation and highly distinguished in manners. Madame
de Genlis, who saw him almost daily during his early
years, says that even his representations of gems in
pictures had a natural fire and gleam, the secret of which
could not be divined by any chemist or painter. None
of his pictures are in evidence, and it can only be specu-
lated whether he had contrived to fix light on canvas
or whether he employed a preparation of mother-of-
pearl, or some metallic coating.
The Comte de Saint-Germain professed the Catholic
Religion and conformed to its practices with great fidelity.
This notwithstanding, there were reports of suspicious
evocations and strange apparitions ; he claimed also to
have the secret of eternal youth. Was this mysticism
or was it madness ? His family connections were un-
known and to hear him talk of past events suggested
that he had lived for many centuries. Of all that was
in kinship with occult science he said but little, and when
the benefit of initiation was demanded at his hands he
400
Magic and the Resolution
pretended to know nothing on the subject. He chose
his own disciples, required passive obedience on their part
and then talked of a royalty to which they were called,
being that of Melchisedek and Solomon, a royalty of
initiation, which is a priesthood at the same time. *' Be
the torch of the world,'* he said. **If your light is that
only of a planet, you will be as nothing in the sight of
God. I reserve for you a splendour, of which the solar
glory is a shadow. You shall guide the course of stars
and those who rule empires shall be governed by you."
These promises, the proper meaning of which is quite
intelligible to true adepts, are recorded substantially,
if not in the words here given, by the anonymous author
of a History of Secret Societies in Germany^ and they are
evidence as to the school of initiation with which the
Comte de Saint-Germain was connected. The following
details have been so far unknown concerning him.
The Comte de Saint-Germain was born at Lentmeritz
in Bohemia, at the end of the seventeenth century. He
was either the natural or an adopted son of a Rosicrucian
who called himself Comes Cabalicus — the Companion
Kabalist — ridiculed under the name of Comte de
Gabalis by the unfortunate Abbe de Villars.^ Saint-
* The reference is probably to a French work, which in the absence
of date and fuller description cannot be identified with certainty.
* The writer in question certifies (a) that the Comte de Gabalis was
a German, (d) that he was a great nobleman and a great Kabalist,
(c) that his lands were on the frontiers of Poland, (d) that he was a man
of good presence who spoke French with a foreign accent. Saint-
Germain testified on his own part to Prince Karl of Hesse that he was
the son of Prince Ragoczy of Transylvania. Perhaps the latter place
will^be regarded as sufficiently in proximity to Poland to make the story
of Eliphas Levi a little less unlikely than it appears on the surface.
But the prince in question was Franz-Leopold Ragoczy, who spent his
life in conspiracies against the Austrian Empire, " with the object of
regaining his independent power" and the freedom of his principality.
No more unlikely person can be thought of as the original of the
ridiculous Comte de Gabalis, and the Comte de Saint-Germain never
intimated that he belonged to a line of Kabalists, least of all such a
KabaHst and occultist as is depicted by the Abb6 de Villars. See
Mrs. Cooper Oakley's Monograph on the Comte de St, Germain^ Milan,
1912,
401 2 C
The History of Magic
Germain never spoke of his father, but he mentions
that he led a life of proscription and errantry in a world
of forest, having his mother as companion. This was
at the age of seven years, which, however, is to be
understood symbolically and is that of the initiate when
he is advanced to the Grade of Master. His mother was
the science of the adepts, while the forest, in the same
kind of language, signifies empires devoid of the true
civilisation and light. The principles of Saint-Germain
were those of the Rosy Cross, and in his own country he
established a society from which he separated subsequently
when anarchic doctrines became prevalent in fellowships
which incorporated new partisans of the Gnosis. Hence
he was disowned by his brethren, was charged even with
treason, and some memorials on illuminism seem to hint
that he was immured in the dungeons of the Castle of Ruel.
On the other hand, Madame de Genlis tells us that he
died in the Duchy of Holstein, a prey to his own con-
science and terrors of the life beyond.^ It is certain in any
case that he vanished suddenly from Paris, no one exactly
knowing where, and that his companions in illumination
permitted the veil of silence and oblivion to fall as far as
possible upon his memory. The association which he
had formed under the title of Saint-Jakin — which has
been turned into Saint Joachim — continued till the
Revolution, when it dissolved or was transformed, like
so many others. A story is told concerning it in a
pamphlet against illuminism ; it is derived from a cor-
respondence in Vienna and, though it is worth repro-
ducing, there is nothing that can be termed certain or
authentic therein.
** Owing to your introduction, I had a cordial welcome
from M. N. Z., who had been informed already of my
arrival. Of the harmonica he approved highly. He
spoke first of all about certain trials, but of this I under-
* See Madame la Comtesse de Genlis : Mimoires Inidites pour servir
d PHistoire des XVII P"' et XIX'''' Sihles.
402
Magic and the Revolution
f tood nothing ; it is of late only that I have been able
to grasp the meaning. Yesterday, towards evening, I
accompanied him to his country house, the grounds of
which are very beautiful. Temples, grottos, cascades,
labyrinths, caves form a long vista of enchantments ; but
an exceedingly high wall which encompasses the whole
pleasaunce was extremely displeasing to me, for beyond
this there is also a wonderful prospect. ... I had
brought the harmonica with me, at the instance of
M. N. Z., with the idea of playing on it for a few
minutes in a place indicated, and on receiving an agreed
signal.^ The visit to the garden over, he took me to-
a room in the front of the house and there left me,
somewhat quickly and under a trivial pretext. It was
now very late ; he did not return ; weariness and the
wish to sleep began to come over me, when I was
interrupted by the arrival of several coaches. I opened
the window, but, being night, I could see nothing, and
I was much puzzled by the low and mysterious whisper-
ing of those who seemed entering the house. Sleep now
overcame me, and an hour must have passed away, when
I was awakened by a servant who was sent to conduct
me and also carry the instrument. He walked very
quickly and far in advance of myself, I following
mechanically, when I heard the sound of horns, which
seemed to issue from the depths of a cave. At
this moment I lost sight of my guide and, proceeding
in the direction from which the noise seemed to be
coming, I half descended a staircase leading to a vault,
from which, to my utter surprise, a funeral chant arose,
and 1 saw distinctly a corpse in an open coffin.
" On one side stood a man clothed in white, covered
^ See the Essai sur la Secte des Illuminh^ which appeared anony-
mously in 1789, the author being the Marquis de Luchet. The story
here reproduced is given in Note XV to the essay in question. It
affirms that the Order of Initiated Knights and Brethren of Asia became
the Order of St. Joachim about 1786. There is no mention of Saint-
Germain in this Note.
403
The History of Magic
with blood ; it appeared to me that a vein had been
opened in his right arm. With the exception of those
who were helping him, all present were shrouded in long
black mantles and were armed with drawn swords. So
far as I could judge in my state of terror, the entrance
to the vault was strewn with human bones, heaped one
upon another. The only light which illuminated the
mournful spectacle was that of a flame, such as is pro-
duced by spirits of wine.
** Uncertain whether I should be able to overtake my
guide, I retreated hurriedly and found him in search of
myself a few paces away ; there was a haggard look in
his eyes, and taking my hand in rather an uneasy manner,
he led me into a singular garden, where I began to
think that I must have been transported by magic. The
brilliance produced by a vast number of lamps, the
murmur of falling waters, the singing of mechanical
nightingales and the perfume which seemed to exhale
everywhere exalted my imagination at the outset. I
was hidden behind a green arbour, the interior of which
was richly decorated, and thither they brought immedi-
ately a person in a fainting state, apparently the one who
had occupied the coffin in the vault. It was at this point
that I received the agreed signal to play my instrument.
Disturbed very much by the whole scene, there is no doubt
that a good deal escaped me,' but I could see that the
swooning person came to himself as soon as I touched
the harmonica ; he also began to ask questions with an
accent of astonishment, saying : * Where am I } What
^ ;6liphas L6vi explains in a note that the neophyte whose experience
is related, and who was mistaken for a corpse, was in a state of
somnambulism induced by magnetism. In respect of the green arbour,
and the effects produced by the harmonica, he refers to Deleuze : His-
toire Critique dii Magnetisvie Anitnal^ 2nd edition, 1829. It contains
curious accounts of the magnetic chain and trough, magnetised trees,
music, the voice of the mesmerist and the instruments employed by
him. Levi adds that the author was a partisan of mesmerism which does
not leave his opinions open to suspicion. I do not know what this is
intended to convey, but the work of Deleuze was of authority in its own
day and is still worth reading.
404
Magic and the devolution
is this voice?' Shouts of joy, accompanied by trumpets
and timbrels, were the only answer. Everyone ran to
arms and plunging into the depths of the garden were
quickly out of sight. I am still in agitation as I write these
lines ; and if I had not taken the precaution to make my
notes on the spot, I should regard it to-day as a dream."
The most inexplicable part of this scene is the pre-
sence of the uninitiated person who tells the story.
How the association could thus risk the betrayal of its
mysteries is a question that cannot be answered, but the
mysteries themselves can be explained easily.^ The suc-
cessors of the old Rosicrucians, modifying little by little
the austere and hierarchic methods of their precursors in
initiation, had become a mystic sect and had embraced
zealously the Templar magical doctrines, as a result of
which they regarded themselves as the sole depositaries
of the secrets intimated by the Gospel according to St.
John. They regarded the narratives of that Gospel as
an allegorical sequence of rites designed to complete
initiation, and they believed that the history of Christ
must be realised in the person of each one of the adepts.
Furthermore, they recounted a Gnostic legend, according
to which the Saviour, instead of being buried in the new
tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, having been swathed and
perfumed, was brought back to life in the house of St.
John. This was the pretended mystery which they
celebrated to the sound of horns and harmonica.^ The
^ It will be observed that Eliphas Levi is taking the story more seri-
ously than he proposed to do at the beginning. If therefore I may on
my own part take the Marquis de Luchet for a moment in the same
manner and assume that he was right in saying that the Order of Saint
Joachim was a transformation of the Knights and Brethren of Asia, it
seems certain that the latter did not owe their origin to Saint-Germain
and that their connection with Rosicrucianism was of the Masonic kind
only, members of the fifth degree being called True Brothers Rose Croix,
otherwise Masters of the Sages, Royal Priests, and Brothers of the Grade
of Melchisedek.
^ Compare the ribaldries of the Marquis de Luchet respecting the
Harmonica and his supplementary account of its use in the evocations
of Lavater.
405
The History of Magic
Candidate was invited to offer up his life and was actually
subjected to bleeding which caused him to swoon. This
swoon was called death and when he returned to himself,
his resurrection was celebrated amidst outbursts of joy
and gladness. The varied emotions produced, the scenes,
by turns mournful and brilliant, must have permanently
impressed the candidate's imagination, and rendered him
either fanatical or lucid. Many believed that a real re-
surrection took place in themselves and felt convinced
that they were no longer subject to death. The heads
of the society thus had at the service of their concealed
projects the most formidable of all instruments, namely,
madness, and secured on the part of their adepts that
blind and tireless devotion which unreason produces more
often and more surely than goodwill.
The sect of Saint-Jakin was therefore an order of
Gnostics steeped in the illusions of the Magic of Fascina-
tion ; it drew from Rosicrucians and Templars ; and its
particular name was one of the two names — Jachin and
Boaz — engraven on the chief pillars of Solomon's Temple.
In Hebrew the initial letter of Jachin is Yoi^ a sacred
letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and also the initial of
Jehovah, which Divine Name was indeed veiled from the
profane under that of Jachin^ whence the designation
Saint-Jakin. The members of this order were theo-
sophists, unwisely addicted to theurgic processes.^
All that is told of the mysterious Comte de Saint-
Germain supports the idea that he was a skilful phy-
sician and a distinguished chemist. He is said to have
known how to fuse diamonds so that there was no trace
of the operation ; he could also purify precious stones,
^ Jachin is connected in Kabalism with the Sephira Netzach^ because
it is the right hand pillar, and on account of Neizach, Jachin is in
correspondence with DIKj^ TVI^ and niK3V ^'•- The Divine Name
Teiragrammaton cannot be said on Kabalistical authority to be veiled
in Netzach. It was really veiled in Adonai because of Shekinah, and
the cohabiting glory between the cherubim was the manifestation,
vestment and concealment of Jehovah.
406
Magic and the Revolution
thus making the most common and imperfect of high
value. That imbecile and anonymous author^ whom
we have already cited places the latter claim to his
credit but denies that he ever made gold, as if one did
not make gold in the making of precious stones. Saint-
Germain also invented, according to the same authority,
and bequeathed to the industrial sciences, the art of
imparting greater brilliance and ductility to copper —
another invention sufficient to prove the fortune of him
who devised it. Performances of this kind make us
forgive the Comte de Saint-Germain for having been
acquainted with Queen Cleopatra and for chatting famili-
arly with the Queen of Sheba. He was otherwise
good-natured and gallant ; he was one who loved
children and amused himself by providing them with
delicious sweetmeats and marvellous toys ; he was dark
and of small stature, dressed richly but with great taste
and cultivating all the refinements of luxury. He is
said to have been received familiarly by Louis XV, and
was engrossed with him over questions of diamonds and
other precious stones. It is probable that this monarch,
entirely governed by courtesans and given up to pleasure,
was rather yielding to some caprice of feminine curiosity
than to any serious concern for science when he invited
Saint-Germain to certain private audiences. The Comte
was the fashion for a moment, and as he was an amiable
and youthful Methuselah, who knew how to combine
the tattle of a roue with the ecstasies of a theosophist,
he was the rage in certain circles, though speedily
replaced by other phantasiasts. So goes the world.
It is said that Saint-Germain was no other than that
^ There is no secret as to the authorship of the tract on Illuminism,
and Levi could have been enhghtened on the subject by his friend, J. M.
Ragon. So far from being imbecile, the monograph \ii the Marquis
de Luchet is entertaining if it is not brilliant. As to the transmutations
of Saint-Germain, it is meant that there is no evidence of gold being
produced by his methods, but it is otherwise in respect of precious stones.
For the exoneration of De Luchet it does not signify that the evidence
is bad.
407
The History of Magic
mysterious Althotas who was the Master in Magic of
another adept with whom we are about to be occupied
and who took the Kabalistic name of Acharat. The
supposition has no foundation, as will be seen in due
course.
Whilst the Comte de Saint-Germain was thus in
request at Paris, another mysterious adept was on his
way through the world, recruiting apostles for the
philosophy of Hermes. He was an alchemist who
called himself Lascaris and gave out that he was an
eastern archimandrite, charged with collecting alms for
a Greek convent. The distinction was this, that instead
of demanding money, Lascaris seemed occupied, so to
speak, in sowing his path with gold and leaving the trail
of it behind him wherever he went. His appearances
were momentary only and his guises many ; here he was
old and in the next place still a young man.. He did
not make gold in public on his own part, but caused
it to be made by his disciples, with whom he left at
parting a little of the powder of projection. Nothing
is better established than the transmutations operated
by these emissaries of Lascaris. M. Louis Figuier, in
his learned work on the alchemists, does not question
either their reality or their importance. Now, in physics
above all, there in nothing more inexorable than facts,
and it must be therefore concluded from these that the
Philosophical Stone is not a matter of reverie, if the vast
tradition of occultism, the ancient mythologies and the
serious researches of great men in all ages are not other-
wise sufficient to establish its real existence.^ A modern
chemist, who has not failed to publish his secret, has
* See LAlchihtie et les AlchimisteSy by Louis Figuier, pp. 320 et seq.
I have intimated that it is very difficult to trust this writer in matters of
historical fact, but he represents Lascaris as appearing in Germany at
the end of the seventeenth century, being then about fifty years old, and
in any case it is a mistake to say that he was in evidence when the
Comte de Saint-Germain was making a sensation in Paris. Lascaris
had long since vanished'from the theatre of Hermetic events.
408
Magic and the Revolution
arrived at the extraction of gold from silver by a ruinous
process, for the silver sacrificed by him does not produce
in gold more than the tenth of its value, or thereabouts.
Agrippa, who never attained the universal dissolvent,
was notwithstanding more fortunate than our chemist,
for he did obtain gold which was equivalent in value to
the silver employed in his process and did not therefore
lose his labour absolutely, if to employ it in research
after the grand secrets of Nature can be called loss.
To set men upon researches which might lead them
to the absolute philosophy by the attraction of gold, such
would appear to have been the end of the propaganda
connected with the name of Lascaris; reflection on
Hermetic books would of necessity lead those who
studied to a knowledge of the Kabalah. As a fact, the
initiates of the eighteenth century thought that their
time had come — some for the foundation of a new
hierarchy, others for the subversion of all authority and
for setting on the summits of the' social order the level
of equality. The Secret Societies sent their scouts
through the world to sound opinion, and at need
awaken it. After Saint-Germain and Lascaris came
Mesmer, and Mesmer was succeeded by Cagliostro.
But they were not all of the same school : Saint-
Germain was the ambassador of illuminated theo-
sophists, while Lascaris represented the naturalists
attached to the tradition of Hermes. Cagliostro was
the agent of the Templars, and this is how he came
to announce, in a circular addressed to all Masons in
London, that the time had come to build the Temple
of the Eternal. Like the Templars, Cagliostro was
addicted to the practices of Black Magic and to the
fatal science of evocations. He divined past and present,
predicted' things to come, wrought marvellous cures and
pretended to make gold. He introduced a new Rite
under the name of Egyptian Masonry and sought to
restore the mysterious worship of Isis. Wearing a
409
"The History of Magic
nemys like that of the Theban sphinx, he presided in
person over nocturnal assemblies, in chambers em-
blazoned with hieroglyphics and lighted by torches. His
priestesses were young girls, whom he called doves, and
he placed them in a condition of ecstasy by means
of hydromancy in order to obtain oracles, water being
an excellent conductor, a powerful reflector, and highly
refracting medium for the Astral Light, as proved by
sea and cloud mirages.
It is obvious that Cagliostro was a successor of
Mesmer and had the key of mediumistic phenomena ;
he was himself a medium, meaning that he was a man
whose nervous organisation was exceptionally impression-
able, and to this he joined a fund of ingenuity and
assurance, public exaggeration and the imagination — espe-
cially of women — supplying the rest. Cagliostro had
an extravagant success ; his bust was to be seen every-
where— inscribed : *' The divine Cagliostro.'' A reaction
equivalent to the enthusiasm was of course to be fore-
seen ; after having been a god, he became an intriguer
and impostor, the debaucher of his wife, a scoundrel in
fine, to whom the Roman Inquisition shewed grace by
merely condemning him to perpetual imprisonment.
The fact that his wife sold him lends colour to the
idea that previously he had sold his wife.^ He was
taken in a snare, his prosecution followed and his
accusers published as much of the process as they
pleased. The revolution came in the meantime, and
everyone forgot Cagliostro.
This adept is, however, by no means without im-
portance in the history of Magic ; his Seal is as significant
as that of Solomon and attests his initiation into the
highest secrets of science. As explained by the Kabalistic
letters of the names Acharat and Althotas, it expresses
* It was in the presence of the rack that the testimony of his wife
was extracted, and I suppose that there is no one at this day who will
count it as infidelity on her part.
410
Magic and the Revolution
the chief characteristics of the Great Arcanum and the
Great Work. It is a serpent pierced by an arrow, thus
representing the letter Alefh, an image of the union
between active and passive, spirit and life, will and light.
The arrow is that of the antique Apollo, while the
serpent is the python of fable, the green dragon of
Hermetic philosophy. The letter Alefh represents equili-
brated unity. This pantacle is reproduced under various
forms in the talismans of old. Magic, but occasionally the
serpent is replaced by the peacock of Juno, the peacock
with the royal head and the tail of many colours. This
is an emblem of analyged light, that bird of the Magnum
Opus^ the plumage of which is all sparkling with gold.
At other times, instead of the emblazoned peacock, there
is a white lamb, the young solar ram bearing the cross,
as still seen in the armorial bearings of the city of Rouen.
The peacock, the ram and the serpent have the same
hieroglyphical meaning — that of the passive principle and
the sceptre of Juno. The cross and arrow signify the
active principle, will, magical action, the coagulation of
the dissolvant, the fixation of the volatile by projection
and the penetration of earth by fire. The union of the
two is the universal balance, the Great Arcanum, the
Great Work, the equilibrium of Jachin and Boaz. The
initials L.P.D., which accompany this figure, signify
Liberty, Power, Duty, and also Light, Proportion,
Density ; Law, Principle, and Right. The Freemasons
have changed the order of these initials, and in the form
of L.'.D.'.P.*.^ they render them as Liberie de Penser^
Liberty of Thought, inscribing these on a symbolical
bridge, but for those who are not initiated they substitute
Liberie de Passer^ Liberty of Passage. In the records
of the prosecution of Cagliostro it is said that his ex-
amination elicited another meaning as follows : Lilia
desirue pedibus : Trample the lilies under foot ; and in
^ This device is inscribed on the symbolic bridge which is mentioned
in the Grade of Knight of the East, or of the Sword'.
411
The History of Magic
support of this version may be cited a masonic medal
of the 1 6th or 17th century, depicting a branch of
lilies severed by a sword, having these words on the
exergue : Talent dabit ultio mess em — Revenge shall give
this harvest.
The name Acharat, assumed by Cagliostro, is written
Kabalistically thus : 5^«, -ik, n«, and expresses the triple
unity : B^«, the unity of principle and beginning ; IK, the
unity of life and perpetuity of regenerating move-
ment; and n«, the unity of end in an absolute
synthesis.
The name Althotas, or that of Cagliostro*s master,
is composed of the word Thot^ with the syllables Al
and As^ which, if read Kabalistically are Saldy meaning
messenger or envoy. The name as a whole therefore
signifies : Thot^ the messenger of the Egyptians, and such
in effect was he whom Cagliostro recognised as his master
above all others.^
Another title adopted by Cagliostro was that of the
Grand Copht, and his doctrine had the twofold object
of moral and physical regeneration. The precepts of
moral regeneration according to the Grand Copht were
as follows : " You shall go up Mount Sinai with Moses ;
you shall ascend Calvary ; with Phaleg you shall climb
Thabor, and shall stand on Carmel with Elias. You
shall build your tabernacle on the summit of the moun-
tain ; it shall consist of three wings or divisions, but
these shall be joined together and that in the centre shall
have three storeys. The refectory shall be on the
ground-floor. Above it there shall be a circular chamber
with twelve beds round the walls and one bed in the
centre : this shall be the place of sleep and dreams. The
uppermost room shall be square, having four windows
^ According to the account of himself which Cagliostro gave at the
famous trial arising out of the Diamond Necklace affair, Acharat was
the name which he bore in the years of childhood which he spent at
Medina. His "governor" was Althotas, who has been sometimes
identified with Kolmer, the instructor of Weishaupt in Magic.
412
Magic and the Revolution
in each of the four quarters ; and this shall be the room
of light. There, and alone, you shall pray for forty
days and sleep for forty nights in the dormitory of the
Twelve Masters. Then shall you receive the signatures
of the seven genii and the pentagram traced on a sheet
of virgin parchment. It is the sign which no man
knoweth, save he who receiveth it. It is the secret
character inscribed on the white stone mentioned in the
prophecy of the youngest of the Twelve Masters. Your
spirit shall be illuminated by divine fire and your body
shall become as pure as that of a child. Your penetra-
tion shall be without limits and great shall be also your
power; you shall enter into that perfect repose which
is the beginning of immortality ; it shall be possible for
you to say truly and apart from all pride : I am he
who is.'*
This enigma signifies that in order to attain moral
regeneration, the transcendent Kabalah must be studied,
understood and realised. The three chambers are the
alliance of physical life, religious aspirations and philo-
sophical light ; the Twelve Masters are the great revealers,
whose symbols must be understood ; the signatures of
the seven spirits mean the knowledge of the Great
Arcanum. The whole is therefore allegorical, and it is
no more a question of building a house of three storeys
than a temple at Jerusalem in Masonry.
Let us now turn to the secret of physical regeneration,
to attain which — according to the occult prescription of
the Grand Copht — a retreat of forty days, after the
manner of a jubilee, must be made once in every fifty years,
beginning during the full moon of May, in the company
of one faithful person only. It must be also a fast of
forty days, drinking May-dew — collected from sprouting
corn with a cloth of pure white linen — and eating new
and tender herbs. The repast should begin with a large
glass of dew and end with a biscuit or crust of bread.
There should be slight bleeding on the seventeenth day.
413
The History of Magic
Balm of Azoth^ should then be taken morning and
evening, beginning with a dose of six drops and increasing
by two drops daily till the end of the thirty-second day.
At the dawn which follows thereafter renew the slight
bleeding ; then take to your bed and remain in it till the
end of the fortieth day.
On the first awakening after the bleeding, take the
first grain of Universal Medicine. A swoon of three
hours will be followed by convulsions, sweats and much
purging, necessitating a change both of bed and linen.
At this stage a broth of lean beef must be taken, seasoned
with rice, sage, valerian, vervain and balm. On the day
following take the second grain of Universal Medicine,
which is Astral Mercury combined with Sulphur of Gold.
On the next day have a warm bath. On the thirty-
sixth day drink a glass of Egyptian wine, and on the
thirty-seventh take the third and last grain of Universal
Medicine. A profound sleep will follow, during which
the hair, teeth, nails and skin will be renewed. The
prescription for the thirty-eighth day is another warm
bath, steeping aromatic herbs in the water, of the same
kind as those specified for the broth. On the thirty-
ninth day drink ten drops of Elixir of Acharat in two
spoonsful of red wine. The work will be finished on
the fortieth day, and the aged man will be renewed in
youth.'^
By means of this jubilary regimen, Cagliostro claimed
to have lived for many centuries. It will be seen that
it is a variation of the famous Bath of Immortality in
^ In his Lexicon Alchvniae, 1612, Martinus Rulandus explains that,
according to the system of Paracelsus, Azoth was the Universal Medicine,
though for others it is one of the names ascribed to the Philosophical
Stone. It was evidently neither in the process of Cagliostro, but — if
questioned — he might have identified it with Philosophical Mercury, a
substance which can be extracted from any metallic body.
^ It is interesting to note that Mr. W. R. H. Trowbridge, who has
made the latest attempt to exonerate Cagliostro, has omitted all reference
to the regeneration processes and the alleged attempt to renew thereby
the youth of Cardinal de Rohan.
414
Magic and the Revolution
use among the Menandrian Gnostics.^ The question is
whether Cagliostro believed in it seriously. However
this may be, before his judges he shewed much firmness
and presence of mind, professing that he was a catholic
who honoured the pope as supreme chief of the religious
hierarchy. On matters relating to the occult sciences he
replied enigmatically and when accused of being absurd
and incomprehensible he told his examiners that they
had no ground of judgment, at which they were offended,
and ordered him to enumerate the seven deadly sins.
Having recited lust, avarice, envy, gluttony and sloth,
they reminded him that he had omitted pride and anger.
To this the accused retorted : *' Pardon me ; I had not
forgotten them, but I did not include them out of
respect for yourselves and for fear of offending you
further."
He was condemned to death, wliich was afterwards
commuted to perpetual imprisonment. In his dungeon
Cagliostro asked to make his confession and himself
designated the priest, who was a man of his own figure
and stature.2 The confessor visited him and was seen to
take his departure at the end of a certain time. Some
hours after the gaoler entered the cell and found the
body of a strangled man clothed in the garments of
Cagliostro, but the priest himself was never seen again.
Lovers of the marvellous declare that the Grand Copht
is at this day in America, being the supreme and invisible
pontiff of the believers in spirit-rapping.
^ As seen already, Menander was the successor of Simon Magus, and
the baptism which he performed was claimed to confer immortality.
^ This story has been altered from the original narrative to make it
appear that Cagliostro escaped. He did nothing of the sort, for the
monk proved the stronger of the two. Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar
is the authority for the account, and he is said to have guaranteed its
accuracy.
415
CHAPTER III
PROPHECIES OF CAZOTTE
The school of unknown philosophers founded by Martines
de Pasqually and continued by L. C. de Saint-Martin seems
to have incorporated the last adepts of true initiation.
Saint-Martin was acquainted with the ancient key of the
Xarot — the mystery, that is to say, of sacred alphabets
and hieratic hieroglyphics. He has left many very
curious pantacles which have never been engraved and
of which we possess copies. One of them is the tradi-
tional key of the Great Work and is called by Saint-
Martin the key of hell, because it is that of riches.^
The Martinists were the last Christians in the cohort of
illumines, and it was they who initiated the famous
Cazotte.
We have said that during the eighteenth century a
schism took place in illuminism : on the one hand, the
wardens of the traditions concerning Nature and science
wished to restore the hierarchy; there were others, on
the contrary, who desired to level all things by disclosing
the Great Arcanum, thus rendering the royalty and
priesthood alike impossible in the world. Among the
latter, some were ambitious and unscrupulous, seeking to
erect a throne for themselves over the ruins of the world.
^ Saint-Martin did not continue the school of theurgic Masonry
founded by Martines de Pasqually. He abandoned the school and all
active connection with Rites and Lodges. The evidence for his ac-
quaintance with the Tarot rests on the fact that his Tableau Natural des
Rapports qui existent entre Dieu^ P Homme et P Univers happens to be
divided into 22 sections, and there are 22 Tarot Trumps Major. On the
same evidence the same assertion i^ made in respect of the Apocalypse.
That which seemed adequate for Eliphas L6vi continues to be found
sufficient for the school of Martinism to-day and for its Grand Master,
Papus.
416
Magic and the Revolution
Others were dupes and zanies. The true initiates beheld
with dismay the launching of society towards the abyss,
and they foresaw all the terrors of anarchy. That revolu-
tion which was destined at a later period to manifest
before the dying genius of Vergniaud under the sombre
figure of Saturn devouring his children had already shewn
itself fully armed in the prophetic dreams of Cazotte.
On a certain evening, when he was surrounded by blind
instruments of the Jacobinism to come, he predicted the
doom of all — for the strongest and weakest the scaffold,
for the enthusiasts, suicide — and his prophecy, which at
the moment was rather like a sombre jest, was destined
to be realised amply.^ As a fact, it was only the calculus
of probabilities, and it proved strictly correct because it
dealt with chances which had already become fatal conse-
quences. La Harpe, who was impressed by the prediction,
amplified the details, to make it appear more marvellous.^
He mentioned, for example, the exact number of times
that a certain guest of the moment would draw the razor
across his throat. Poetic licence of this kind may be
forgiven to the tellers of unusual stories; such adorn-
ments are of the substance of style and poetry rather
than untruths.
The gift of absolute liberty to men who are unequal
by Nature is an organisation of social war ; when those
who should restrain the headlong instincts of the crowd
are so mad as to unloose them, it does not need a great
magician to foresee that they will be the first to be
devoured, since animal lusts are bound to prey upon one
another until the appearance of a bold and skilful hunts-
^ See Deleuze : Mdmoires sur la Faculty de la Privision^ 1836.
2 The reader who is in search of romances may also consult
P. Christian : Histoire de la Magie^ published about 1871. It pretends
that Court de Gebelin left an account in MS. of the interrogation of
Count Cagliostro in the presence of many Masonic dignitaries, including
Cazotte, at the Masonic Convention of Paris. The date was May 10,
1785. Cagliostro on that occasion predicted the chief events of the
French Revolution, and, at the suggestion of Cazotte, gave the name,
then unknown, of the Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte.
417 2D
The History of Magic
man who will end them by shot and snare. Gazette
foresaw Marat, as Marat in his turn foresaw reaction and
a dictator. Cazotte made his first appearance in public
as the author of some literary trifles and it is said that
he owed his initiation to the romance of Le Diable
Amaureux, . There is no question that it is full of
magical intuitions, and love, that supreme ordeal of
life, is depicted in its pages under the true light of the
doctrine of adeptship. Passion in a state of delirium and
folly invincible for those who are slaves of imagination,
physical love is but death in the guise of allurement,
seeking to renew its harvest by means of birth. The
physical Venus is death, painted and habited like a
courtesan ; Cupid also is a destroyer, like his mother,
for whom he recruits victims. When the courtesan is
satiated, death unmasks and calls in turn for its prey.
This is why the Church — which safeguards birth by
sanctifying marriage — lays bare in their true colours the
debaucheries which are mortal, by condemning without
pity all the disorders of love. If she who is beloved is
not indeed an angel, earning immortality by sacrifice to
duty in the arms of him whom she loves, she is a stryge
who expends, exhausts and slays him, finally exposing
herself before him in all the hideousness of her animal
egoism. Woe to the victims of the Le Diable AmoureuXy
thrice woe to those who are beguiled by the lascivious
endearments of Biondetta. Speedily the gracious coun-
tenance of the girl will change into that camel's head
which appears so tragically at the end of the romance
of Cazotte.
According to the Kabalists there are two queens of
the stryges in Sheol — one is Lilith, the mother of abortions,
and the other is Nehamah, fatal and murderous in her
beauty. When a man is false to the spouse set apart for
him by heaven, when he is abandoned to the disorders of
a sterile passion, God withdraws his legitimate bride and
delivers him to the embraces of Nehamah, who assumes
418
Magic and the Revolution
at need all charms of maidenhood and of love ; she turns
the hearts of fathers, and at her instigation they abandon
all the duties owing to their children ; she brings married
men to widowhood ; while those who are consecrated to
God she coerces into sacrilegious marriage. When she
assumes the role of a wife she is, however, unmasked
easily, for on her marriage-day she appears in a state of
baldness, that hair which is the veil of modesty for
womanhood being forbidden her on this occasion. Later
on she assumes airs of despair and disgust with existence ;
she preaches suicide, deserts him who cohabits with her,
having first sealed him between the eyes with an infernal
star. The Kabalists say further that Nehamah may
become a mother but she never rears her children, as
she gives them to her fatal sister to devour.
These Kabalistic allegories, which are found in the
Hebrew book concerning the Revolution of Souls, in-
cluded by Rosenroth in the collection of the Kabbala
Denudata^ and otherwise met with in Talmudic com-
mentaries on the Sota must have been either known or
divined by the author of Le Diable Amoureux} Hence
we are told that after the publicationof his novel, Cazotte
had a visit from an unknown person who was wrapped
in a mantle, after the traditional manner of emissaries of
the Secret Tribunal. The visitor made signs to Cazotte
which he failed to understand and then asked whether
indeed he had not been initiated. On receiving a reply
in the negative, the stranger assumed a less sombre ex-
pression and then said : ^' I perceive that you are not
an unfaithful recipient of our secrets but rather a vessel
of election prepared for knowledge. Do you wish to
rule in reality over human passions and over impure
spirits ^ '* Cazotte displayed his curiosity ; a long talk
^ The Tractatus de Revolutionibus Animarufn was the work of R.
Isaac de Loria, a German Kabalist. It is contained in the second
volume o{ Kabbala Denudata. It is not allegorical and it has no Tal-
mudic or Zoharic authority. As it was translated into French in 1905,
most people can judge for themselves on the subject.
419
The History of Magic
followed ; it was the preface to other meetings ; and the
author of Le Diahle Amour eux was called to initiation at
the end. He became a devout supporter of order and
authority as a consequence and also a redoubtable enemy
of anarchists.
We have seen that, according to the symbolism of
Cagliostro, there is a mountain into which those must
go up who are on the quest of regeneration ; this moun-
tain is white with light, like Tabor, or red with fire and
blood, like Sinai and Calvary. The Zohar says that
there are two chromatic syntheses ; one of them is white
and is that of peace and moral light ; the other, which is
red, is that of war and material life. The Jacobins had
plotted to unrol the standard of blood, and their altar
was erected on the red mountain. Cazotte was enrolled
under the banner of light, and his mystical tabernacle was
established on the white mountain. That which was
stained with blood triumphed for a moment, and Cazotte
was proscribed. The heroic girl who was his daughter
saved him from the slaughter at the Abbey ; it so hap-
pened that the prefix denoting nobility was not attached
to her name and she was spared therefore that horrible
toast of fraternity which immortalised the filial piety of
Mdlle. de Sombreuil, who, to be vindicated from the
charge of aristocracy, drank the health of her father in
the blood-stained glass of cut-throats.
Cazotte was in a position to foretell his own death,
because conscience compelled him to fight against anarchy
even to the last. He obeyed it, was arrested for the
second time and brought before the revolutionary tribunal
as one condemned already. The President who pro-
nounced his sentence added an allocution full of esteem
and regret, pledging his victim to be worthy of himself
unto the end and to die nobly as he had lived. Even
in episodes of the tribunal, the revolution was a civil
war and the brethren exchanged salutations as they con-
demned one another to death. The explanation is that
420
Magic and the Revolution
there was the sincerity of conviction on both sides and
both were entitled to respect. Whosoever dies for that
which he thinks to be true is a hero even in his decep-
tion, and the anarchists of the ensanguined mountain
were not only intrepid when despatching others to the
scaffold, but ascended it themselves without blanching.
Let God and posterity be their judges.
421
CHAPTER IV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Once there was a man in the world who was soured on
discovering that his disposition was cowardly and vicious,
and he visited his consequent disgust on society at large.
He was an ill-starred lover of Nature, and Nature in her
wrath armed him with eloquence as with a scourge. He
dared to plead the cause of ignorance in the face of
science, of savagery in the face of civilisation, of all
low-life deeps in the face of all social heights. Instinc-
tively the populace pelted this maniac, yet he was wel-
comed by the great and lionised by women. His success
was so signal that, by revulsion, his hatred of humanity
increased, and he ended in suicide as the final issue of his
rage and disgust. After his death the world was shaken
in its attempts to realise the dreams of Jean Jacques
Rousseau, and that silent conspiracy which ever smce the
murder of Jacques de Molay had sworn destruction to
the social edifice, inaugurated in Rue Platriere, and in
the very house where Rousseau had once lived, a Masonic
Lodge, with the fanatic of Geneva as its patron saint.
This Lodge became the centre of the revolutionary pro-
paganda, and thither came a prince of the blood royal,
vowing destruction to the successors of Philip the Fair
over the tomb of the Templar.
It was the nobility of the eighteenth century which
corrupted the people ; the aristocracy of that period were
seized with a mania for equality, which took its rise
in the orgies of the Regency ; low company was kept for
the pleasure of it and the court obtained diversion in
talking the language of the slums. The archives of the
422
Magic and the Revolution
Order of the Temple ^ testify that the Regent was its
Grand Master, that he had as his successors the Due
de Maine, the princes of Bourbon-Conde and Bourbon-
Conti, and the Due de Cosse-Brissac. Cagliostro drew
auxiliaries from the middle class to swell the member-
ship of his Egyptian Rite ; everyone was eager to obey
the secret and irresistible impulse which drove decadent
civilisation to its destruction. Events did not tarry, but
as if impelled by hands unseen, they were heaped one
upon another, after the manner foreseen by Cazotte.
The unfortunate Louis XVI was led by his worst
enemies, who at once prearranged and stultified the
paltry project of evasion which brought about the catas-
trophe of Varennes, just as they had done with the orgie
at Versailles and the massacre of August lO. On every
side they compromised the king ; at every turn they
saved him from the fury of the people, to foment that
fury and ensure the dire event which had been in prepa-
ration for centuries. A scaffold was essential to complete
the revenge of the Templars.
Amidst the pressure of civil war, the National As-
sembly suspended the powers of the king and assigned
him the Luxembourg as his residence ; but another and
more secret assembly had ruled otherwise. A prison
was to be the residence of the fallen monarch, and that
prison was none other than the old palace of the Tem-
plars, which had survived, with keep and turrets, to await
the royal victim doomed by inexorable memories. There
he was duly interned, while the flower of French eccle-
siasticism was either in exile or at the Abbey. Artillery
thundered on the Pont Neuf, menacing posters proclaimed
that the country was in danger, unknown personages
organised successive slaughters, while a hideous and
* The reference is here to the latest development of Templary under
the ?egis of Fabre-Palaprat. It came into public knowledge about 1805,
and its invention is not much earlier. Its documents were fictitious, like
its claims.
The History of Magic
gigantic being, covered with a long beard, was to be
seen wheresoever there were priests to murder. '* Be-
hold," he cried with a savage sneer, " this is for the
Albigenses and the Vaudois ; this is for the Templars,
this for St. Bartholomew and this for the exiles of
the Cevenncs." As one who was beside himself, he smote
unceasingly, now with the sabre and now with axe or
club. Arms broke and were replaced in his hands ; from
head to foot he was clothed in blood, swearing with
frightful blasphemies that in blood only he would wash.
It was this man who proposed the toast of the nation
to the angelical Mdlle. de Sombreuil. Meanwhile another
angel prayed and wept in the tower of the Temple,
offering to God her own sufferings and those of two
children to obtain pardon for the royalty of France. All
the agonies and all the tears of that virgin martyr, the
saintly Mme. Elizabeth, were necessary for the expiation
of the imbecile joys which characterised courtesans like
Mme. de Pompadour and Mme. du Barry.
Jacobinism had received its distinctive name before
the old Church of the Jacobins was chosen as the head-
quarters of conspiracy; it was derived from the name
Jacques — an ominous symbol and one which spelt revolu-
tion. French iconoclasts have always been called Jacques;
that philosopher whose fatal celebrity prepared new
Jacqueries and was a peg on which to hang the sanguinary
projects of Johannite schemers bore the name of Jean
Jacques, while those who were prime movers in the
French Revolution had sworn in secret the destruction of
throne and altar over the tomb of Jacques de Molay.
At the very moment when Louis XVI suffered under
the axe of revolution, the man with a long beard — that
wandering Jew, significant of vengeance and murder
— ascended the scaffold and, confronting the appalled
spectators, took the royal blood in both hands, casting it
over the heads of the people, and crying with his terrible
voice : " People of France, I baptise you in the name
424
Magic and the Revolution
of Jacques and of liberty." ^ So ended half of the work,
and it was henceforth against the Pope that the army of
the Temple directed all its efforts. Spoliation of churches,
profanation of sacred things, mock processions, inaugura-
tion of the cultus of reason in the metropolis of Paris
— these were the signals in chief of the war in its new
phase. The Pope was burnt in effigy at the Palais Royal,
and presently the armies of the Republic prepared to
march on Rome. Jacques de Molay and his companions
were martys possibly, but their avengers dishonoured
their memory. Royalty was regenerated on the scaffold
of Louis XVI ; the Church triumphed in the captivity
of Pius VI, when he was taken a prisoner to Valence,
perishing of fatigue and suffering. But the unworthy
successors of that old chivalry of the Temple perished
in their turn, overwhelmed by disastrous victory.
Signal abuses had characterised the ecclesiastical state
and grave scandals were entailed by the misfortune of
great riches ; but when the riches melted away, the pre-
eminent virtues returned. Such transitory disasters and
such a spiritual triumph were predicted in the Apocalypse
of St. Methodius, to which reference has been made
already. We have a black letter copy of the work
mentioned, printed in 1527 and embellished with
amazing designs. Unworthy priests are shewn in the
act of casting the sacred elements to swine ; the populace
in a state of rebellion are seen assassinating the priests
and breaking their sacramental vessels on their heads ;
the Pope appears as a prisoner in the hands of soldiers ;
a crowned knight raises with one hand the standard of
France, and with the other draws his sword against
Italy. Finally, two eagles are depicted on either side
of a cock, bearing a crown on his head and a double ^<?«f
ie lys on his breast. One of the eagles combines with
* ^liphas L^vi mentions in a note that he quotes these words as they
were given to him by an old man who heard them. They are cited
differently in Xht Journal of Prudhomme.
425
The History of Magic
griffins and unicorns to drive the vulture from his eyrie ;
and there is a host of other marvels. This singular
book may be compared with an illustrated edition of the
prophecies attributed to Abb6 Joachim, the Calabrian,
wherein are exhibited portraits of all the Popes to come,
with the allegorical signs of their respective pontificates,
down to the coming of Anti-Christ. These are strange
chronicles of futurity, pictured as things of the past;
they seem to intimate a succession of worlds wherein
events are repeated, so that the prevision of things to
come is the evocation of shadows already lost in the
past.
426
CHAPTER V
PHENOMENA OF MEDIOMANIA
In the year 1772, a certain parishioner of Saint-Mande,
named Loiseaut, being at Church, believed that he saw
an extraordinary person kneeling close by him ; this was
a very swarthy man, whose only garment was a pair of
coarse worsted drawers. His beard was long, his hair
woolly, and about his neck there was a ruddy circular
scar. He carried a book, having the following inscrip-
tion emblazoned in golden letters : Ecce Agnus Dei.
Loiseaut observed with astonishment that no one but
himself seemed aware of this strange presence, but he
finished his devotions and returned home, where the
same personage was awaiting him. He drew nearer to
ask who he was and what might his business be, when
the fantastic visitor vanished. Loiseaut retired to bed in
a fever and unable to sleep. The same night he found
his room illuminated suddenly by a ruddy glow ; he
sprang up in bed, believing that the place was on fire ; and
then on a table in the very centre of the room he saw a
gold plate, wherein the head of his visitor was swimming
in blood, encompassed by a red nimbus. The eyes rolled
terribly, the mouth opened, a strange and hissing voice
said : ** I await the heads of kings, the heads of the
courtesans of kings ; I await Herod and Herodias."
The nimbus faded and the sick man saw no more.^
Some days after he had recovered sufficiently to re-
sume his usual occupations. As he was crossing the
^ I have failed to trace this story to its source, but Eliphas I.^vi was
curiously instructed in the byways of French occult history, and though
he could seldom resist the decoration and improvement of his narratives,
they had always a basis in fact.
427
The History of Magic
Place Louis XV, a beggar accosted him and Loiseaut,
without looking, threw a coin into his hat. "Thank
you,'* said the recipient, '* it is a king's head ; but here,"
and he pointed towards the middle place of the thorough-
fare, " there will fall another, and it is that for which I am
waiting." Loiseaut looked with astonishment towards
the speaker and uttered a cry when he recognised the
strange figure of his vision. '' Be silent," said the
mendicant ; " they will take you for a fool, as no one
but yourself can see me. You have recognised me, I
know, and to you I confess that I am John Baptist, the
Precursor. I am here to predict the punishment which
will befall the successors of Herod and the heirs of
Caiaphas ; you may repeat all that I tell you.'*
From this time forward Loiseaut believed that St.
John was present visibly at his side, almost from day
to day. The vision spoke to him long and frequently
on the woe^ which would befall France and the Church.
Loiseaut related his vision to several persons, who were
not only impressed but became seers on their own part.
They formed among themselves a mystical society which
met in great secrecy. It was their custom to sit in a
circle, holding hands and awaiting communications in
silence. This might continue for hours, and then the
figure of the Baptist would appear in the midst of them.
They fell, concurrently or successively, into the magnetic
sleep and saw, passing before their eyes, the future scenes
of the revolution, with the restoration which would come
thereafter.
The spiritual director of this sect or circle was a
monk named Dom Gerle, who became also their leader
on the death of Loiseaut in 1788.^ At the epoch of the
V Christian Antoine Gerle was born in 1740 and died in 1805. He
was a Carthusian, who came into some prominence under the Constituent
Assembly. On April 10, 1790, Dom Gerle proposed a decree that "the
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church was and should remain always
the religion of the' nation, and that its worship should be alone autho-
rised." See Albert Sorel : L Enrobe ei la Revolution Fraficaise^ vol. ii.
428
Magic and the Revolution
Revolution, however, having been won over by republican
enthusiasm, Dom Gerle was expelled by the other mem-
bers, acting on the inspirations of their chief somnambulist,
who was known as Sister Frangoise Andr6. He had a
somnambulist of his own, and in a Parisian garret he
followed what was then the new craft of a mesmerist.
The seeress in question was an old and nearly blind
woman, named Catherine Theot ; she prophesied, and her
predictions were realised ; she cured many who were
sick ; and as her forecasts had a political cast invariably,
the police of the Comite de salut public were not slow in
taking up the matter.
One evening, Catherine Th6ot was in an ecstasy, sur-
rounded by her adepts. ** Hearken," she exclaimed, " I
hear the sound of his footsteps ; he is the mysterious
chosen one of Providence, the angel of revolution, at
once its saviour and victim, king of ruins and regenera-
tion. Do you see him ? He draws nigh. He also has
been encircled by the ruddy nimbus of the Precursor ; it
is he who shall bear all crimes of those who are about to
immolate him. Great are thy destinies, O thou who
shalt close the abyss by casting thyself therein. Do you
not behold him, adorned as if for a festival, carrying
flowers in his hands — garlands which are crowns of his
martyrdom.'* Then sobbing and melting into tears :
** How cruel is thine ordeal, my son ; and how many
ingrates shall curse thy memory through the ages. Rise
up, and kneel down : he comes ; the king comes — he is
the king of bloody sacrifices."
At this moment the door opened quickly; a man
entered enveloped in a cloak and having his hat drawn
over his eyes. Those who were present rose up ; Catherine
Thdot stretched forth her arms towards the new comer
and said as her hands trembled : ** I knew that you must
p. 121. He was imprisoned at the Conciergerie but was liberated, and
during the reign of Napoleon he was appointed to an office in the Home
Department.
429
The History of Magic
come, and I have awaited your coming. He who is at
my right side, but unseen by you, shewed you to me
yesterday, when an accusation was lodged against us.
We are accused of conspiring for the king, and of a king
I have indeed spoken ; it is he whom the Precursor
reveals to me at this present moment, having a crown
steeped in blood, and I know over whose head it is placed
— your own, Maximilian."
At this name the unknown started, as if a red hot
steel had entered his breast. He cast a swift and anxious
glance about him, after which his expression became
again impassible.
*' What would you say .^ I fail to understand," he
murmured in a short and abrupt manner.
** I would say,'* replied Catherine Theot, " that the
sun will beam brightly on that day when a man clothed
in blue and bearing a sceptre of flowers shall be for one
moment the king and saviour of the world. I would
say that you shall be great as Moses and as Orpheus,
when, trampling on the head of that monster which is
ready to devour you, you shall testify to headsmen and
to victims that God is. Cease from this masking, Robes-
pierre ; shew us rather without paling that valiant head
which God is about to cast in the empty scale of his
balance. The head of Louis XVI is heavy and yours
can only be its counterpoise.'*
" Do you threaten ? " asked Robespierre coldly, letting
his cloak fall. ** Do you think by this juggling to startle
my patriotism and influence my conscience ? Do you hope
by fanatical measures and old wives' fables to surprise
my resolves as you have played the spy on my proceed-
ings .? You have looked for me, it would seem, and woe
to you because you have looked. Since you compel the
curiosity-seeker, the anonymous visitor and observer to
be Maximilian Robespierre, representative of the people,
as such I denounce you to the committee of public weal,
and I shall proceed to have you arrested."
430
Magic and the Revolution
Having said these words, Robespierre cast his cloak
round his powdered head and walked stiffly to the door.
No one dared to detain and none to address him.
Catherine Th6ot clasped her hands and said : " Respect
his will, for he is king and pontiff of the new age. If he
strike us, it is that God wills to strike us ; lay bare the
throat before the knife of Providence."
The initiates of Catherine Th6ot waited expecting
their arrest through the whole night, but no one appeared.
They separated on the following day. Two or three
further days and nights elapsed, during which the members
of the sect made no attempt at concealment. On the
fifth day, Catherine Th6ot and those who were called her
accomplices were denounced to the Jacobins by a secret
enemy of Robespierre who insinuated skilfully to his
hearers certain doubts against the tribune — a dictator-
ship had been mentioned, the very name of king was
pronounced. Robespierre knew, and how came he to
tolerate \0. Robespierre shrugged his shoulders, but
on the morrow Catherine Th^ot, Dom Gerle and some
others were arrested and consigned to those prisons which,
once entered, opened only to furnish his daily task to
the headsman.
The story of Robespierre's interview with Catherine
Th6ot had transpired, one knows not how.^ Already the
counter-police of the Thermidorians were watching the
presumed dictator, whom they accused of mysticism
because he believed in God. Robespierre notwithstand-
ing was neither the friend nor enemy of the sect of New
Johannites. He went to Catherine Theot that he might
take account of phenomena, and dissatisfied at having
been recognised he departed with threats which he did
not attempt to fulfil ; those who converted the conven-
* She is said to have been imprisoned in the Bastille, but this seems
to be an error, for it is certain that she died in the Conciergerie at the
age of 70. She called herself the mother of God, prophesied the speedy
advent of a Messiah and promised that eternal life would then begin for
the elect.
431
The History of Magic
tide of the old monk and ecstatic into a sect of conspiracy
hoped to derive from the proceeding a doubt or an
opportunity for ridicule attaching to the reputation of
the incorruptible Maximilian. The prophecy of Catherine
Th^ot was fulfilled by the inauguration of the worship of
the Supreme Being and the swift reaction of Thermidor.
During this time the sect which had gathered about
Sister Andr6, whose revelations were recorded by a Sieur
Ducy, continued their visions and miracles. The fixed
notion which they cherished was to preserve the legiti-
macy by the future reign of Louis XVII. ^ Times out
of number they saved in dream the poor little orphan of
the Temple and believed also that they had saved him
literally. Old prophecies promised the throne of the
lilies to a young man who had been once a captive. So
Bridget, St. Hildegarde, Bernard ToUard, Lichtembergcr
— all foretold a miraculous restoration after great dis-
asters.^ The Neo-Johannites were the interpreters and
multipliers of these forecasts ; a Louis XVII never failed
them ; they had seven or eight in succession, all perfectly
authentic and not less perfectly preserved. It is to the
influence of this sect that we owe at a later period the
revelations of the peasant Martin de Gallardon and the
prodigies of Vintras.
In this magnetic circle, as in the assemblies of Quakers
or Shakers of Great Britain, enthusiasm proved contagious,
and was propagated from one to another. After the
death of Sister Andr6, second sight and the gift of pro-
phecy devolved upon a certain Legros, who was at
Charenton when Martin was incarcerated provisionally
* See my Studies in Mysticisnty pp. 99-11 1, for a summary account
of the Saviours of Louis XVII.
* St. Hildegarde died in 11 79 at the age of 81. She wrote three
books of Revelations, which were approved by the Council of Treves,
and Latin authorities have termed her one of the most illustrious mystics
of Germany. In the fifteenth century the Council of Basle approved
the Revelations of St. Bridget, who was born about 1307 and she died
on July 23, 1373. A translation in full of her memorial was published at
Avignon in four small volumes, dated 1850.
Magic and the Revolution
therein. He recognised a brother in the Beauceron
peasant whom he had never seen. All these partisans,
by force of willing Louis XVII created him in a certain
sense ; that is to say, they worked such efficacious hallu-
cinations that mediums were made in the image and like-
ness of the magnetic type, and believing themselves to
be literally the royal child escaped from the Temple,
they attracted all the reflections of this gentle and frail
victim, so even that they remembered circumstances
known only to the family of Louis XVI. This pheno-
menon, however incredible it may appear, is neither im-
possible nor unheard of. Paracelsus states that if, by
an extraordinary effort of will, one can picture oneself
as another person, one would know thereby and forthwith
the inmost thought of that person, and would attract
his most secret memories. Often after a conversation
which has placed us in thought-affinity with a companion
in conversation, we dream reminiscences of his private
life. Among the simulators of Louis XVII we must
therefore recognise some who were not impostors, but
hallucinated beings, and among these last is the Swiss
who is named Naiindorfi^, a visionary like Swedenborg,
one indeed so contagious in his conviction that old
servants of the royal family have recognised him and
cast themselves weeping at his feet. He bore the parti-
cular signs and scars of Louis XVII ; he recounted his
infancy with a startling appearance of truth and entered
into minute details, which are decisive for private remem-
brances. His very features would have been those of
the orphan of Louis XVI, had he really lived. One
thing only in fine was wanting for the pretender to have
been Louis XVII truly, and that is not to have been
Naiindorff.^
* Out of a great body of claimants, computed by one writer to have
been forty, and by another two hundred in number, there are four who
may rank as competitors at least one with another for recognition as
the escaped Dauphin : they are the Baron de Richemont, Augustus
M^ves, Eleazar Williams and Naiindorff.
433 2 E
The History of Magic
Such was the contagious magnetic power of this
deluded person that even his death did not undeceive any
of the believers in his reign to come. We have seen
one of the most convinced, to whom we timidly objected
— when he spoke of the approaching restoration of what
he called the true legitimacy — that his Louis XVII was
dead. " Is it then more difficult for God to raise him
from death than it was for those who preceded us to
save him from the Temple ? '* Such was the answer
given us — and this with a smile so triumphant that almost
it seemed disdainful. We had nothing to rejoin on our
own part, but were rather compelled to bow in the
presence of such a conviction.
434
CHAPTER VI
THE GERMAN ILLUMINATI
Germany is the native land of metaphysical mysticism
and phantoms. A phantom itself of the old Roman
empire, it seems always to invoke the mighty shade of
Hermann, consecrating in his honour the simulacrum of
the captive eagles of Varus. The patriotism of young
Germany is invariably that of the Germans in elder days.
They have no thought of invading the laughing land of
Italy ; they accept the situation, as it stands, simply as
a matter of revenge ; but they would die a thousand
times in the defence of their hearths and homes. They
love their old castles, their old legends of the banks of
the Rhine ; they read with the uttermost patience the
darksome treatises of their philosophy ; they behold in
the fogs of their sky and in the smoke of their pipes a
thousand things inexpressible, by which they are initiated
into the marvels of the other world. Long before there
was any question of mediums and their evocations in
America and France, Prussia had its illuminati and seers,
who had habitual communications with the dead. At
Berlin, a great noble built a house destined for evoca-
tions ; King Frederick William was very curious about
all such mysteries and was often immured in this house
with an adept named Steinert. His experiences were so
signal that a state of exhaustion supervened and he had
to be restored with drops of some magical elixir analogous
to that of Cagliostro. There is a secret correspondence
belonging to the reign in question which is cited by the
Marquis de Luchet in his work af^ainst the illuminati,
and it contains a description or the dark chamber in
435
The History of Magic
which the evocations were performed. It was a square
apartment, divided by a transparent veil ; the magical
furnace or altar of perfumes was erected in front of the
veil and behind was a pedestal on which the spirit mani-
fested. In his German work upon Magic, Eckarts-
hausen describes the whole of the fantastic apparatus,
being a system of machines and operations by which
imagination was helped to create the phantoms desired,
those who consulted the oracle being in a kind of waking
somnambulism, comparable to the nervous excitement
produced by opium or hasheesh. Those who are con-
tented with the explanations given by the author just
mentioned will regard the apparitions as magic lantern
effects, but there is more in it assuredly than this, while
the magic lantern was only an accessory instrument in the
business and one in no sense necessary for the production
of the phenomenon. The images of persons once known
on earth and now called up by thought do not appear
as reflections of coloured glass ; the pictures painted by
a lantern do not speak, nor do they give answers to
question on matters of conscience. The king of Prussia,
to whom the house belonged, was well acquainted with all
the apparatus and was not therefore duped by jugglery,
as the author of the secret correspondence pretends.
The natural means paved the way for the prodigy but
did not perform the latter ; and the things which occurred
were of a kind to surprise and disturb the most inveterate
sceptic. 1 Schroepfer, moreover made use of no magic
lantern and no veil, but those who came to him drank
* The work of De Luchet is quite worthless from the evidential
standpoint, but the so-called correspondence is cited in a Note on pp.
182-186 of the essay. It appears that the House Magical had been sold to
King Frederick William, but the person who assisted at the evocations
is called un grand Seigneur^ which may or may not veil the royal
identity. Moreover, Steinert was the adept who compounded the "magi-
cal elixir," and was pensioned on this account ; but it is not stated that
he was the magus of the ceremonial proceedings. I have been unable
to check the recital of Eckartshausen, which is very difficult to meet
with in England.
Magic and the Revolution
a kind of punch which he prepared; the forms which
then appeared by his mediation were like those of the
American Home, that is to say, partially materialised,
and they caused a curious sensation in persons who sought
to touch them. The experience was analogous to an
electric disturbance, making the flesh creep, and there
would have been no such sensation if people had moistened
their hands before touching the apparition. Schroepfer
acted in good faith, as does also the American Home ;
he believed in the reality of the spirits evoked by him,
and he killed himself when he began to doubt it.^
Lavater, who also died violently, was utterly given
over to evocations ; he had two spirits at his command
and belonged to a circle which cultivated catalepsy by
the help of a harmonica. A magical chain was formed ;
a species of imbecile served as the spirit's interpreter and
wrote under his control. 2 This spirit gave out that he
was a Jewish Kabalist who died before the birth of Jesus
Christ, and the things which the medium recorded under
his influence were worthy of Cahagnet's somnambulists.^
There was, for example, a revelation on sufferings in the
life beyond, the communicating spirit stating that the
soul of the emperor Francis was compelled to calculate
the number and exact condition of all the snail-shells
which may exist and have existed in the whole universe.
* In the Secret Tradition in Freemasonry I • have indicated that
Schroepfer is, on the whole, rather likely to have possessed some
psychic powers, which notwithstanding his story ran the usual course
of imposture. As he practised evocation perpetually, his suicide can be
accounted for owing to the conditions which supervened on this account.
There seems no real reason to suppose that he killed himself because
he doubted his powers ; however, the question does not signify.
^ It is just to say that another side of Lavater is shewn in his Secret
Journal of a Self-Observer^ which is a very curious memorial — or
human document, as it would be termed in our modern language of
inexactitude. It contains no suggestion of evocations and dealings
with Jewish Kabalists, in or out of the flesh.
' Cahagnet is the author of the following works : Arcanes de la
Vie Future^ 3 vols., 1848-1854 ; Lumiere des Morts, 1851 ; Magic
MagnHique^ 2nd Edition, 1858 ; Sanctuaire du Spiritualisnie^ 1850 ;
Revelations d* outre Tombe^ 1856.
437
The History of Magic
He made known also that the true names of the three
Magi were not, as tradition tells us, Caspar, Melchior
and Balthazar, but on the contrary Vrasapharmion,
Melchisedek and Baleathrasaron ; it is like reading the
names written by our modern process of table-turning.
The spirit also testified that he was himself doing
penance for having threatened his father with the
magical sword and that he felt disposed to make his
friends a present of his portrait. Paper, paints and
brushes were placed at his request behind a screen ; he
was then seen to design on the screen the outline of a
small hand ; a slight friction was audible on the paper ;
when it ceased everyone pressed forward and found
rudely painted the likeness of an old Rabbi vested in
black, with a white ruffle over the shoulders and a black
skull-cap, a costume altogether eccentric for a personage
who was anterior to Jesus Christ. The painting, for the
rest, was smudged and ill-drawn, resembling the work of
a child amusing himself by daubing with eyes shut.^ The
written instructions of the medium under the inspiration
of Gablidone vie in their obscurity with the characteristics
of German metaphysicians. '*The attribute of majesty
must not be conferred lightly," says this authority, '* for
majesty is a derivation from Mage, seeing that the Magi
were pontiffs and kings ; they were therefore the primeval
majesties. It is against the majesty of God that we offend
when we sin mortally ; we wound Him as Father, casting
death into the sources of life. The fountain of the
Father is light and life ; that of the Son is blood and
water ; while the splendour of the Holy Spirit is fire
and gold. We sin against the Father by falsehood,
against the Son by hatred and against the Holy Spirit by
debauchery, which is the work of death and destruction."
^ This account is taken from Note XV. appended to the Essai sur la
Secte des IllumitUs^ but the Marquis de Luchet depended on another
writer, the latter drawing from Lavater's Spiritus Familiaris Gablidone^
published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1787.
438
Magic and the Revolution
The good Lavater received these communications like
oracles and when he asked for some further illumina-
tions, Gablidone proceeded as follows: "The great
revealer of mysteries shall come, and he will be born in
the next century. The religion of the patriarchs will
then be known on earth ; it will explain to mankind
the triad of Agion^ Helion^ Tetragrammaton ; and the
Saviour whose body is girt with a triangle shall be
shewn on the fourth step of the altar ; the apex of the
triangle will be red and the device of mystery thereon will
be : Venite ad fatres osfhal. One of the auditors demanded
the meaning of the last word, and the medium wrote as
follows without other explanations : Alphas, M : ApAoUy
Eliphismatis. Certain interpreters have concluded that
the magus whose advent was announced in the course
of the nineteenth century would be named Maphon and
would be the son of Eliphisma, but this reading may be
somewhat speculative.
There is nothing more dangerous than mysticism, for
the mania which it begets baffles every combination of
human wisdom. It is ever the fools who upset the world
and that which great statesmen never foresee is the des-
perate work of a maniac. The architect of the temple
of Diana at Ephesus promised himself eternal glory, but
he counted without Erostratus. The Girondins did not
foresee Marat. What is needed to alter the equilibrium
of the world ? asked Pascal, on the subject of Cromwell.
The answer is, a speck of gravel formed by chance in the
entrails of a man. So do the great events come about
through causes which in themselves are nothing. When
any temple of civilisation crashes down, it is always the
work of a blind man, like Samson, who shakes the pillars
thereof. Some wretched preacher, belonging to the dregs
of the people, is suffering from insomnia and believes
himself elected to deliver the world from anti-Christ.
Accordingly he stabs Henry IV and reveals to France in
its consternation the name of Ravaillac. The German
439
The History of Magic
thaumaturgists regarded Napoleon as the Apollyon
mentioned in the Apocalypse and one of their neophytes,
named Stabs, came forward to kill the military Atlas,
who at the given moment was carrying on his shoulders
a world snatched from the chaos of anarchy. But that
magnetic influence which the Emperor called his star was
more potent than the fanatical impulse of the German
occult circles. Stabs could not or dared not strike ;
Napoleon himself questioned him; he admired his
resolution and courage ; but, as he understood his own
greatness, he would not detract from the new Scevola by
forgiving him; he shewed his estimation indeed by
taking him seriously and allowing him to be shot.
Carl Sand, who killed Kotzebue, was also an unfor-
tunate derelict child of mysticism, misled by the secret
societies, in which vengeance was sworn upon daggers.
Kotzebue may have deserved cudgelling, but the weapon
of Sand reinstated and made him a martyr. It is indeed
grand to perish as the enemy and victim of those who
wreak vengeance by means of ambuscades and assassina-
tions. The secret secieties of Germany practised rites
which were less or more comparable to those of Magic.
In the brotherhood of Mopses, for example^ the mysteries
of the Sabbath and the secret reception of Templars
were renewed in mitigated and almost humorous forms.
The Baphometic Goat was replaced by a dog, as if
Hermanubis were substituted for Pan, or science for
Nature — the latter being an equivalent change, since
Nature is known solely by the intermediation or science.
The two sexes were admitted by the Mopses, as was the
case at the Sabbath ; the reception was accompanied by
barkings and grimaces, and, as among the Templars, the
Neophyte was invited to take his choice between kissing
the back parts of the devil, the Grand Master or the
Mopse, which was a small image of card-board, covered
with silk, and representing a dog, called Mop in German.
The salutation in question was the condition of reception
440
Magic and the Revolution
and recalls that which was ofFered to the Goat of Mendes
in the initiations of the Sabbath. The Mopses took no
pledges other than on their word of honour, which is the
most sacred of all oaths for self-respecting people. Their
meetings were occasions for dancing and festivity — again
like those of the Sabbath — except that the ladies were
clothed, and did not hang live cats from their girdles or
eat little children : it was altogether a civilised Sabbath.^
Magic had its epic in Germany and the Sabbath its
great poet ; the epic was the colossal drama of Faust —
that completed Babel of human genius. Goethe was
initiated into all mysteries of magical philosophy ; in his
youth he had even practised the ceremonial part. The
result of his daring experiments was to produce in him,
for the time being, a profound disgust with life and a
strong inclination towards death. As a fact, he accom-
plished his suicide, not by a literal act but in a book ; he
composed the romance of Werther^ the fatal work which
preaches death and has had so many proselytes ; then,
victorious over discouragement and disgust, and having
entered the serene realms of peace and truth, he wrote
Faust, It is a magnificent commentary on one of the
most beautiful episodes in the Gospel — the parable of the
prodigal son. It is initiation into sin by rebellious science,
into suffering by sin, into expiation and harmonious
science by suffering. Human genius, represented by
Faust, employs as its lackey the spirit of evil, who aspires
to become master; it exhausts quickly all the delight
that is attributed by imagination to unlawful love ; it
goes through orgies of folly ; then, drawn by the charm
of sovereign beauty, it rises from the abyss of disillusion
to the heights of abstraction and imperishable beauty.
There Mephistopheles is at his ease no longer ; the implac-
Mt is suggested by Clavel that when Charles VI suppressed
Masonry in Austria, owing to a Bull of Pope Clement XII, the brethren
of certain lodges instituted the Order of Mopses to fill the gap. See
Histoire Pittoresque de la Francma^onnerie, 3rd edition, 1844, p. 154.
Ragon reproduces the opinion in his Manuel de Plniti^y 1861, p. 88.
441
The History of Magic
able laughter turns sad ; Voltaire gives place to Chateau-
briand. In proportion as the light manifests, the angel
of Darkness writhes and tosses ; he is bound by celestial
angels; he admires them against his will; he loves,
weeps and is conquered.
In the first part of the drama, we see Faust separated
by violence from Margaret ; the heavenly voices cry
that she is saved, even as she is being led to execution.
But can that Faust be lost who is always loved by
Margaret } Is not his heart already espoused to heaven ?
The great work of redemption in virtue of solidarity
moves on to its fulfilment. How should the victim ever
be consoled for her sufferings, did she not convert her
executioner.? Is not forgiveness the revenge of the
children of heaven } The love which has first reached
the empyrean draws science after it by sympathy ; Chris-
tianity uprises in its admirable synthesis. The new Eve
has washed the mark from the forehead of Cain with
the blood of Abel, and she weeps with joy over her
two children, who hold her in their joint embrace. To
make room for the extension of heaven, hell — which has
become useless — ceases. The problem of evil has found
its definitive solution, and good — alone necessary and
alone triumphant — shall reign henceforth eternally.
Hereof is the glorious dream of the greatest of all
poets, but the philosopher, by misfortune, forgets the
laws of equilibrium ; he would swallow up light in a
shadowless splendour and motion in an absolute repose,
which would signify cessation of life. So long as there
is visible light, there will be shadow in proportion there-
with. Repose will never be happiness, unless equilibrated
by an analogous and contrary movement. So long as
there shall be free benediction, blasphemy will remain
possible ; so long as heaven remains, a hell there will
also be. It is the unchangeable law of Nature and the
eternal will of that justice whose other name is God.
442
CHAPTER VII
EMPIRE AND RESTORATION
Napoleon filled the world with wonders, and in that
world was himself the greatest wonder of all. The
Empress Josephine, his wife, curious and credulous as
a Creole, passed from enchantments to enchantments.
A glory of this kind had, as we are told, been promised
her by an old gipsy woman, and the folk of the country-
side still believe that she was herself the Emperor's
good genius. As a fact, she was a sweet and modest
counsellor who would have saved him from many perils,
had he always listened to her warnings, but he was
impelled forward by fatality, or rather by providence,
and that which was to befall him had been decreed
beforehand. In a prophecy attributed to St Cisaire
but signed Jean de Vatiguerro, and found in the Liber
MirabiliSy a collection of predictions printed in 1524,^
there are the following astonishing sentences.
" The churches shall be defiled and profaned, and
the public worship suspended. The eagle shall take
flight over the world and overcome many nations. The
greatest prince and most august sovereign in all the
West shall be put to rout after a supernatural defeat.
A most noble prince shall be sent into captivity by his
enemies and shril mourn in thinking of those who were
devoted to hiM. Before peace is restored to France, the
same events shall be repeated again and again. The
eagle shall be crowned with a triple diadem, shall return
^ Ltder Mirabilis : qui Prophetias : Revelationesque : nee non res
Mirandas: preteritas : presentes : et futuras aperte demonstrate 1522.
The work is in two parts, of which the first is in Latin and the second
in French.
443
The History of Magic
victorious to his eyrie and shall leave it only to ascend
into heaven."
After predicting the spoliation of churches and the
murder of priests, Nostradamus foretells the birth of an
emperor in the vicinity of Italy and says that his reign
will cost France a great outpouring of blood, while those
who belong to him will betray him and charge him with
the spilling of blood.
" An Emperor shall be born near Italy,
Who shall cost dear to the Empire :
They shall say, With what people he keepeth company !
He shall be found less a prince than a butcher.
From a simple soldier he shall come to have the supreme
command,
From a short gown he shall come to the long one ;
Valiant in arms, no worse man in the Church,
He shall vex the priests, as water doth a sponge." ^
This is to say that at the moment when the church
experiences the greatest calamities, he will overwhelm
the priests with benefits. In a collection of prophecies
published in 1820, and of which we possess a copy, the
following phrase occurs after a prediction concerning
Napoleon I : " And the nephew will accomplish that
which the uncle failed to do." The celebrated Mile.
Lenormand had in her library a volume in boards with a
parchment back, containing the Treatise of Olivarius on
Prophecies^ followed by ten manuscript pages, in which
the reign of Napoleon and his downfall were announced
formally. The seeress imparted the contents of this
work to the Empress Josephine. Having mentioned
Mile. Lenormand, a few further words may be added
about this singular woman ; she was stout and extremely
plain, emphatic in talk, ludicrous in style, but a wak-
ing somnambulist of conspicuous lucidity. She was the
^ I have used the seventeenth century English translation. The
original says : En PEglise au plus pire^ traiter Us pretres comme Veau
fait nponge. I do not quite see how Levi's explanation follows, but the
point is not worth discussing.
444
Magic and the Revolution
fashionable seeress under the First Empire and the
Restoration. There is nothing more wearisome than are
her writings, but as a teller of fortunes by cards she was
most successful.
Cartomancy, as restored in France by Etteilla, is
literally the questioning of fate by signs agreed on
beforehand. These in combination with numbers suggest
oracles to the medium, who is biologised by staring at
them. The signs are drawn by chance, after having
shuffled them slowly ; they are arranged according to
Kabalistic numbers, and they respond invariably to the
thoughts of those who question them, seriously and in
good faith, for all of us carry a world of presentiments
within us which any pretext will formulate. Susceptible
and sensitive natures receive from us a magnetic shock
which conveys to them the impression of our nervous state.
The medium can then read our fears and hopes in ripples
of water, forms of clouds, counters cast haphazard on the
ground, in the marks made on a plate by the grouts of coffee,
in the lottery of a card-game, or in the Tarot symbols.
As an erudite Kabalistic book, all combinations of
which reveal the harmonies pre-existing between signs,
letters and numbers, the practical value of the Tarot is
truly and above all marvellous. But we cannot with
impunity, by such means, extort from ourselves the
secrets of our intimate communication with the universal
light. The questioning of cards and Tarots is a literal
evocation, which cannot be performed apart from danger
and crime. By evocations we compel our astral body to
appear before us ; in divination we force it to speak.
We provide a body for our chimaeras by so doing, and
we make a proximate reality of that future which will
actually become ours when it is called up by power of
the word and is embraced by faith. To acquire the
habit of divination and of magnetic consultations is to
make a compact with vertigo, and we have established
already that vertigo is hell.
445
The History of Magic
Mile. Lenormand was infatuated with herself and
with her art ; she thought that the world could not go
on without her and that she was necessary to the equili-
brium of Europe. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle,
the seeress made her appearance with all her properties,
did business at all the customs, and pestered all the
authorities, so that they were compelled in a sense to
concern themselves with her ; she was truly the fly on
the wheel, and what a fly ! On her return she published
her impressions with a frontispiece representing herself
surrounded by all the powers, who consulted her and
trembled in her presence.^
The great events which had just come to pass in the
world turned all minds towards mysticism ; a religious
reaction began and the royalties constituting the Holy
Alliance felt the need of attaching their united sceptres
to the cross. The Emperor Alexander in particular
believed that the hour was come for Holy Russia to
convert the world to universal orthodoxy. The intrigu-
ing and turbulent sect of the Saviours of Louis XVII
sought to profit by this tendency for the foundation of
a new priesthood, and it succeeded in introducing one
of its seeresses to the notice of the Russian Emperor.
Madame Bouche was the name of this new Catherine
Theot, but she was called Sister Salome by the sect.'^
She spent eighteen months at the Imperial Court and
had many secret conferences with Alexander, but he had
more of pious imagination than true enthusiasm ; he
delighted in the marvellous and pretended that it amused
him. It came about that his confidants in this class
of interests presented him with another prophetess, and
Sister Salome was forgotten. Her successor was Madame
de Krudener, an amiable coquette full of piety and virtue,
^ Les Dernieres Pt'ophities de Mile. Lenormand appeared in 1843 and
are joyful reading. She was born at Alengon in 1772 and died on June
25, 1843.
* I have failed to verify the statement that this person had access to
the Emperor Alexander.
446
Magic and the Revolution
who created but was not herself Val^rie.^ It was, how-
ever, her ambition to pass as the heroine of her own
book, and when one of her intimate friends pressed her
to identify the hero, she mentioned an eminent person-
ality of that period. *^ Ah then," said her friend, *Hhe
catastrophe of your book is not in conformity with the
facts, for the gentleman in question is not dead." But
Madame de Krudener replied, "Oh, my dear, he is little
better than dead," and the retort was her fortune. The
influence of Madame de Krudener on the somewhat weak
mind of Alexander was strong enough to concern his
advisers ; he was often shut up with her in prayer, but
in the end she was lost by excess of zeal. One day the
Emperor was taking leave of her when she threw herself
before him, conjuring him not to go out and explaining
how God had made known to her that he was in great
danger, that there was a plot against his life, and that
an assassin was concealed in the palace. The Emperor
was alarmed and summoned the guards ; a search
followed, and some poor wretch was ultimately dis-
covered with a dagger. In confusion he finished by
confessing that he had been introduced by Madame
de Krudener herself.^ Was it true, and had the lady
played the part of Latude in the vicinity of Madame
^ It should be understood that Valerie appeared at Paris in 1803,
when the writer was thirty-nine years old. Her acquaintance with the
Russian Emperor was eleven years later, and it was during the inter-
vening period that her spiritual development took place. She was no
longer an amiable coquette, though the description may once have applied
to her. There is no question that the portrait of VaUrie was, and was
intended to be, her own portrait. As to the identity of her hero, he was
her husband's secretary and there was no intimacy between them in the
evil sense of the term, though she was not of unblemished reputation in
other respects.
* It was the Empress Elizabeth, wife of Alexander, who first brought
Madame de Krudener to the notice of her husband. She shewed him
some of her letters to draw him under religious influence. The King and
mystic met, under singular circumstances, on June 4, 1815. Madame de
Krudener was 13 years older than the Emperor, with pale, emaciated and
drawn features. The story repeated by Eliphas Ldvi, whencesoever it
may come, is an execrable calumny. The acquaintance began at Wiir-
447
The History of Magic
de Pompadour? Was it false, and, secreted by the
Emperor's enemies, was the man's mission — in the event
of the murder failing — to destroy Madame de Krudener ?
Either way, the poor prophetess was lost, for the
Emperor, in his shame at being regarded as a dupe, sent
her about her business without hearing her, and she had
reason to think herself fortunate in escaping so easily.
The little church of Louis XVII did not conclude
that it was beaten by the disgrace of Madame Bouche,
while in that of Madame de Krudener it beheld a
Divine punishment. The prophecies continued and were
reinforced, as required, by miracles. In the reign of
Louis XVIII they put forward a peasant of La Beauce,
named Martin,^ who declared that he had seen an
angel.
From the description which he gave the angel in
question was in the guise of a lackey belonging to some
good family ; he had a long surtout, cut very close at
the waist and of a yellow colour ; he was pale and thin,
with a hat which was probably adorned with gold lace.
The strange thing is that the seer managed to be taken
seriously and obtained an interview with the king,
furnishing one more instance of the resources in
persistence and boldness. It is said that the king was
astonished by revelations concerning his private life,
in which there is nothing that is impossible or even
of an extraordinary nature, now that the phenomena of
magnetism are better authenticated and known. More-
over, Louis XVIII was sufficiently sceptical to be
credulous. Doubt in the presence of existence and its
temberg and continued during the Emperor's residence in Paris, or till
September 28, 181 5. Those were the days which ended in the pro-
clamation of the Holy Alliance, and Madame de Krudener's part in
that work is a matter of history.
* Thomas Ignatius Martin is said to have foretold the revolution of
1830, but the fact is dubious. In his interview with Louis XVIII he is
said also to have told the French King that he was not the rightful
occupant of the French throne, but this is more than dubious. The
particular legitimacy which he supported was that of Naiindorff.
448
Magic and the Revolution
harmonies, scepticism in the face of the eternal mathe-
matics and immutable laws of life, by which Divinity
is manifested everywhere — this assuredly iii the most
imbecile of superstitions and the least excusable, as
it is the most dangerous, of all credulities.
449 2 F
BOOK VII
MAGIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
BOOK VII
MAGIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTVRT
ZAIN
CHAPTER I
MAGNETIC MYSTICS AND MATERIALISTS
The denial of the fundamental doctrine of catholic
religion, formulated so magnificently in the poem of
Fausty had borne its fruits in the world. Morality de-
prived of its eternal sanction became doubtful and
unsettled. A materialistic mystic turned about the
system of Swedenborg to create on earth a paradise of
attractions in proportion to destinies. By the word
attractions Fourier understood the sensuous passions, and
to these he promised an integral and absolute expansion.
God, who is the Supreme Reason, marks such condemned
doctrines with a terrible seal ; the disciples of Fourier
began by absurdity and ended in madness.^
They believed seriously that the ocean would be
presently transformed into an immeasurable bowl of
lemonade ; they believed also in the future creation ot
anti-lions and anti-serpents, in epistolary correspondence
to be established between the planets. We forbear
speaking of the famous tail, thirty-two feet in length,
with which it is reported that the human species was to
be adorned, because it would appear that they had the
^ See La France Mystique^ by Alexandre Erdan, vol. ii. p. 135 et seq.
for notices of four chief disciples of Fourier, the maddest being Victor
Hennequin.
453
The History of Magic
generosity to set this notion aside as, according to their
master, a purely hypothetical question. To such ab-
surdities does the denial of equilibrium lead. And at the
bottom of all these follies there is more logic than would
be thought. The same reason which necessitates suffer-
ing in humanity renders indispensable the bitterness of
sea-water ; grant the integral expansion of instincts, and
you can no longer admit the existence of wild beasts ;
endow man with the capacity of satisfying his appetites
as the sum of all morality, and he will still have some-
thing to envy in ourang-outangs and monkeys. To
deny hell is also to deny heaven, seeing that, according
to the most exalted interpretation of the Great Hermetic
Dogma, hell is the equilibrating reason of heaven, for
harmony results from the analogy of contraries. Quod
superiuSy sicut quod inferius. Superiority presupposes
inferiority ; the depth determines the height, and to fill
up the valleys is to efface mountains; so also to take
away shadows would be to destroy light, as this is only
visible by the graduated contrast of darkness and day ;
an universal obscurity would be produced by all-dazzling
brilliance. The very existence of colours in light is due
to the presence of shadow; it is the triple alliance of
day and night, the luminous image of dogma, the light
made shadow, as the Saviour is the Word made man.
All this rests on the same law, which is the first law of
creation, the one absolute law of Nature, being that of
the distinction and harmonious balancing of opposing
forces in universal equilibrium.
That which has revolted public conscience is not the
dogma of hell but its rash interpretation. Those bar-
barous dreams of the middle ages, those atrocious and
obscene tortures, sculptured on the porticos of churches,
that infamous cauldron for the cooking of human flesh
which lives for ever, so that it may for ever suffer, while
the elect are rejoiced by the smoke — all this is absurd
and impious ; but none of it belongs to the sacred doctrine
454
et rattmam
VtrtlLtiL
vn terra.
C(X.ii
■produjUum
GENERAL PLAN OF KABALISTIC DOCTRINE
FdciJig p. 454
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
of the Church. The cruelty attributed to God constitutes
the most frightful of blasphemies, and it is precisely for
this reason that evil is for ever irremediable while the
will of man rejects the divine goodness. God inflicts the
tortures of reprobation on those who are damned only as
He causes the death of the suicide. '' Work in order to
possess, and you will be happy ** — so speaks the Supreme
Justice to man. — " I would possess and enjoy without
labour.*'; — ** You will then be a robber and will suffer."
— "I will rebel.*' — **You will be broken and will suffer
further.** — "I will rebel for ever." — '*Then shall you
suffer eternally.** Such is the decree of the Absolute
Reason and the Sovereign Justice : what can be answered
hereto by human pride and folly ?
Religion has no greater enemy than unbridled mys-
ticism, which mistakes its feverish visions for divine
revelations. It is not the theologians who have created
the devil's empire, but the false devotees and sorcerers.
To believe a vision of the brain rather than the authority
of public reason or piety has been ever the beginning of
heresy in religion and of folly in the order of human
philosophy ; a fool would not be a fool if he believed in
the reason of others. Visions have never been wanting
to piety in revolt, nor chimeras to reason which excom-
municates and banishes itself. From this point of view,
magnetism has its dangers assuredly, for fhe state which
it induces leads to hallucination as easily as to lucid
intuition. We are dealing in this chapter, on the one
hand, with mystic magnetisers, with materialistic mag-
netisers on the other hand, and we would warn them in
the name of science concerning the risks which they run.
Divinations, magnetic experiences and evocations belong
to one and the same order of phenomena, being those
which cannot be misemployed without danger to reason
and life.
Some thirty or forty years ago a choirmaster of Notre
Dame, who, for the rest, was an exceedingly pious and
455
The History of Magic
estimable man, became infatuated with mesmerism and
gave himself up to its experiences ; he also devoted more
time than was reasonable to the study of the mystics, and
above all the vertiginous Swedenborg. Mental exhaustion
followed, and as it was accompanied by sleeplessness, he
used to rise and continue his studies ; if this failed to
quiet the restlessness of his brain, he took the key of the
church, entered it by the Forte Rouge^ repaired to the
choir which was lighted only by the feeble lamp of -the
High Altar, took refuge in his stall and there remained
till morning, immersed in prayers and profound medi-
tation.
There came a night when eternal damnation formed
the subject of his reflections, in connection with the
menacing doctrine of the small number of the elect. He
was unable to reconcile such rigorous exclusion of the
majority with the infinite goodness of that God Who,
according to Holy Scripture, wills the salvation of all
and their attainment of truth. He thought also of those
fiery torments which the most cruel of earthly tyrants
would not, were it possible, inflict for one day only on his
worst enemy. Doubt entered his heart by all its avenues,
and he had recourse to the conciliating explanations of
theology. The church does not define the fire of hell ;
according to the gospel it is eternal, but it is nowhere
written that the greater number of men are destined to
sufli^er eternally. Many of the condemned may undergo
only the privation of God ; above all the church forbids
absolutely the assumption of individual damnation.
Pagans can be saved by the baptism of desire, scandalous
sinners by sudden and perfect contrition, and in fine we
must hope for all, as we must pray also for all, save one
only, being he of whom the Saviour said that it would
have been better for him had that man never been born.
The last thought brought the choirmaster to a pause,
and it came upon him suddenly that a single man was thus
carrying officially the burden of condemnation for centuries,
456
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
that Judas Iscariot, who is the subject of reference in
the passage of Scripture quoted, after so far repenting his
crime that he died because of it, had become the scape-
goat of humanity, the Atlas of hell, the Prometheus of
damnation. Yet he it was whom the Saviour on the
threshold of death had termed his friend. The choir-
master's eyes filled with tears, redemption seemed ineffec-
tual if it failed to save Judas. "For him and for him
only," he exclaimed in his exaltation, ** would I have died
a second time, had I been the Saviour. Yet is not Jesus
Christ a thousand times better than I am, and what must
He then be doing in heaven, if I am weeping on earth
for His hapless apostle .^ . . . What He is doing," added
the priest, his exaltation increasing, '* is to pity me and
console me ; I feel it. He is telling my heart that the
pariah of the gospel is saved and that he will become, by
the long malediction which still weighs upon his memory,
the redeemer of all pariahs. . . . Now, if it be so, a new
gospel must be proclaimed to the world, and it will be
one of infinite, universal mercy — in the name of the
regenerated Judas. . . . But I am astray, I am a heretic,
a reprobrate . . . and yet, no — for I am sincere.*' Then
clasping his hands fervently, the choirmaster added ;
*' My God, vouchsafe me that which Thou didst not
refuse unto faith of old and which Thou dost not refuse
now — a miracle to convince and reassure me, a miracle
as the testimony of a new mission."
The enthusiast then rose and in that silence of the
night which is so formidable at the foot of altars, in the
vastness of the mute and darksome church, he pro-
nounced the following evocation in loud tones, but
slowly and solemnly : " Thou who hast been cursed for
eighteen centuries, thou for whom I weep, for thou dost
seem to have taken hell solely unto thyself, so that
heaven may be left for us ; thou, unfortunate Judas,
if it be true that the blood of thy Master has purified
thee, so that thou art saved indeed, come and lay
457
The History of Magic
thy hands upon me, for the priesthood of mercy and
love.'*
While the echo of these words was still murmuring
through the affrighted arches, the choirmaster rose up,
crossed the choir and knelt under the lamp before the
High Altar. He tells us, for the account is related by
himself, that he felt positively and really two warm and
living hands placed upon his head, as bishops impose
them on the day of ordination. He was not sleeping
or swooning and he felt them ; it was a real contact
which lasted for several minutes. He became certain
that God had heard him, that a miracle had been per-
formed, new duties had been imposed, and that a new
life was for him begun ; from to-morrow he must be
a new man. But on the morrow the unhappy choir-
master was mad.
The dream of a heaven without hell, the dream
of Faust has made other victims innumerable in this
hapless century of doubt and egoism, which has only
succeeded on its own part in the realisation of a hell
without a heaven. God Himself has become of no effect
in a system where all is permissible, where all things
count for good. Men who have reached the point
where they fear no longer a Supreme Judge, find it easy
to dispense with that God of simple folk, who is less
of a God in reality than the simple folk themselves.
The fools, who vaunt themselves as conquerors of the
devil, end by making themselves gods. Our age is above
all that of these pseudo-divine mummers, and we have
known all grades of them. The god Ganneau, a good
and too poetic nature, who would have given his shirt
to the poor, who reinstated thieves, who admired
Lacenaire, and who would not have hurt a fly ; the god
Cheneau, a dealer in buttons in the rue Croix des Petits-
Champs, a visionary like Swedenborg, and recording his
inspirations in the style of Jeannot ; ^ the god Tourreil,
^ He was the prophet of a third and final alhance between God and man.
458
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
an excellent personage who deified woman and decided
that Adam had been extracted from Eve ; the god
Auguste Comte, who preserved the Catholic religion
intact with two only exceptions, being the existence of
God and the immortality of the soul ; the god Wronski,
he being a true scholar, who had the glory and the
happiness to rediscover the first theorems of the Kabalah,
and who, having sold their communication for 150,000
francs to a wealthy imbecile named Arson, has borne
witness in one of his most serious works that the said
Arson, having refused to pay him in full, has become actu-
ally and literally the beast of the ^focalype. With a view
of enforcing payment, Wronski published a pamphlet
entitled Tes or No — that is to say^ have you or have you
not, yes or no, purchased from me for 1^0,000 francs my
discovery of the absolute P
Lest we should be accused of injustice towards one
whose works have proved useful to ourselves, and whose
eulogium has been pronounced in our former publica-
tions, we will give verbatim the passage in Wronski*s
Reform of Philosophy, p. 512, which calls the attention
of an indifferent universe to the pamphlet above men-
tioned. It will also offer a curious specimen of the style
adopted by this merchant in the Absolute.
** This fact of the discovery of the Absolute, against
which people have appeared to rebel so strongly, has already
been established undeniably by means of a great scandal, that
of the famous Tes or No, not less decisive by the brilliant
victory of truth which followed therefrom than remark-
able by the sudden manifestation of the symbolic being
foreshadowed in the Apocalypse, the monster of creation
who bears the name Mystery on his forehead, and who
on this occasion, fearing to be mortally wounded, can no
longer hide his hideous contortions in darkness, but comes
through the medium of newspapers and by other modes
of publicity to expose in the open day his infernal rage
and the height of his imposture, &c."
459
The History of Magic
It is good to know that this unfortunate Arson, here
accused, had already expended on the hierophant some
forty or fifty thousand francs. We have attained after
Wronski that Absolute which he sold so dearly, and we
have given it without price to our readers, for truth is
due to the world, and none has the right to appropriate
or turn it into trade and merchandise. May this one act
of justice atone for the error of a man who perished in a
condition approaching want after having worked so hard,
though not indeed for science, but to enrich himself by
means of knowledge that he may have been unworthy to
understand or to possess.^
* It is said that after the rupture of his relations with Wronski,
M. Arson instituted a kind of humanitarian religion on his own account,
and combined it with some aspect of metempsychosis speculations.
460
CHAPTER II
HALLUCINATIONS
A ROOT of ambition or cupidity is found invariably
beneath the fanaticism of all the sects. Christ Jesus
Himself reprimanded often and severely those of His
disciples who cleaved to Him, during the days of His pri-
vations and exile in His own land, with the hope that they
would come into a kingdom wherein they would occupy
the seats of the mighty. The more egregious the ex-
pectations are, the more they inveigle some imaginations ;
and people are then prepared to pay for the felicity of
hope with their whole purse and indeed their whole
personality. It is thus that the god Wronski ruined
those imbeciles to whom he promised the Absolute ;
it is thus that the god Auguste Comte drew an annuity
of 6000 francs at the expense of his worshippers, among
whom he had distributed fantastic dignities in advance,
to become realisable when his doctrine should have con-
quered the world. It is thus that certain mediums draw
money from innumerable dupes by promising them
treasures which the spirits always make away with. Some
of these impostors really believe in their promises, and
it is these precisely who are the most unwearying and
the boldest in their intrigues. Money, miracles, prophecies,
none of these fail them, because theirs is that absolute
of will and action which really works wonders, so that
they are magicians without knowing it.
From this point of view, that sect which may be
termed the Saviours of Louis XVII belongs to the history
of Magic. The mania of these people is so contagious
that it draws within the circle of their belief even those
461
The History of Magic
who have come forward to combat them. They procure
the most important and rare documents, collect the
most exceptional testimonies, evoke forgotten memories,
command the army of dreams, insure the apparition of
angels to Martin, of blood to Rose Tamissier, of an
angel in tatters to Eugene Vintras. The last history
is curious on account of its extraordinary consequences,
and we shall therefore recite it.
In 1839, the Saviours of Louis XVII, who had filled
the almanacs with prophecies for 1840, seemed to have
assumed that if the whole world could be made to expect
a revolution, that revolution would not fail to be accom-
plished ; but having no longer their prophet Martin,
they set about to secure another. Some of their most
zealous agents were then in Normandy, of which the
pretended Louis XVII claimed to be Duke. They cast
their eyes on a devout labourer, with an excitable but
weak brain, and they planned the following device.
They framed a letter addressed to the prince, meaning
the pretender, filled it with emphatic promises concerning
the reign to come, in combination with mystical expres-
sions calculated to influence a person of feeble mentality,
and then arranged that it should come into the hands of
the peasant in question, who was named Eugene Vintras,
under circumstances as to which he may be left to speak
for himself.
^' August 6^ 1839.
" Towards nine o'clock I was occupied in writing,
when there was a knock at the door of the room in
which I sat, and supposing that it was a workman who
came on business, I said rather brusquely : * Come in.'
Much to my astonishment, in place of the expected
workman, I saw an old man in rags. I asked merely what
he wanted. He answered with much tranquillity, ' Don't
disturb yourself, Pierre Michel.' Now, these names
are never used in addressing me, for I am known every-
462
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
where as Eugene, and even in signing documents I
do not make use of my first names. I was conscious
of a certain emotion at the old man's answer, and this
increased when he said : * I am utterly tired, and where-
ever I appear they treat me with disdain, or as a thief.'
The words alarmed me considerably, though they were
spoken in a saddened and even a woeful tone. I arose
and placed a ten sous piece in his hand, saying, * I do not
take you for that, my good man,' and while speaking,
I made him understand that I wished to see him out.
He received it in silence but turned his back with a
pained air. No sooner had he set foot on the last step
than I shut the door and locked it. I did not hear him
go down, so I called a workman and told him to come
up to my room. Under some business pretext, I was
wishing him to search with me all the possible places
which might conceal my old man, whom I had not seen
go out. The workman came accordingly. I left the
room in hi« company, again locking my door. I hunted
through all the nooks and corners, but saw nothing.
" I was about to enter the factory when I heard
on a sudden the bell ringing for mass and felt glad that,
notwithstanding the disturbance, I could assist at the
sacred ceremony. I ran back to my room to obtain a
prayer book and, on the table where I had been writing,
I found a letter addressed to Mme. de Generis in London;
it was written and signed by M. Paul de Montfleury
of Caen, and embodied a refutation of heresy, together
with a profession of orthodox faith. The address not-
withstanding, this letter was intended to place before the
Duke of Normandy the most important truths of our
holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion. On the
document was laid the ten sous piece which I had given
to the old man."
In another communication, Pierre Michel admits that
the face of his visitor was not unknown to him, but that
463
The History of Magic
he was struck with strange fear by his sudden appearance,
that he barred and barricaded the door when hq went out
and listened a long time, hoping to hear him go down.
As Vintras heard nothing, there is no doubt that the
mendicant took off his shoes so that he might descend,
making no noise. Vintras ran to the window but did
not see him depart, the explanation being that he had
done so some time previously. Our witness, in the end,
is upset, calls for help, looks everywhere, finally coming
across the letter which he was meant to read, but it
is for him evidently a letter fallen from heaven. Behold
Vintras, devoted henceforth to Louis XVII, behold him
also a visionary for the rest of his days, as the apparition
of the old mendicant never quits him henceforward.
Then seeing that he addressed Vintras as Pierre Michel,
the latter regards him as the archangel Michael, by
an association of ideas which is analogous to that of
dreams.^ The deluded supporters of Louis XVII had
divined, with the second sight of maniacs, the right
moment for impressing the feeble wits of Vintras so
as to make him by a single experience at once an illumini
and a prophet.
The sect of Louis XVII consists more especially of
persons belonging to the service of the legitimate royalty,
and when Vintras became their medium, he was the faith-
ful mirror of their imaginations filled with romanesque
memories and obsolete mysticism. In the visions of the
new prophet there were everywhere lilies steeped in blood,^
angels habited like knights, saints disguised as troubadours.
Thereafter came hosts affixed on blue silk. Vintras had
bloody sweats, his blood appeared on hosts, where it
pictured hearts with inscriptions in the handwriting and
1 The discourses of St. Michael with Vintras are said to have
concerned {a) the destinies of France, {b) the future of religion, {c) the
reform of the clergy. The Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph and Christ Him-
self also visited the seer, according to his own testimony.
* LCEuvre de la Misericorde prit une teinte fleur-de-lys trh prononcie,
— Alexandre Erdan.
464
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
spelling of Vintras ; empty chalices were filled suddenly
with wine, and where the wine fell the stains were like
those of blood. The initiates believed that they heard
delightful music and breathed unknown perfumes; priests,
invited to witness the prodigies, were carried away in the
current of enthusiasm. One of them, from the diocese
of Tours, an old and venerable ecclesiastic, left his cure
to follow the prophet.^ We have personally seen this
priest ; he has narrated the marvels of Vintras with the
most perfect accent of conviction ; he has shewn us hosts
intincted with blood in a most inexplicable manner ; he
has communicated to us copies of official proceedings
signed by more than fifty witnesses, all honorable persons,
occupying positions in the world — artists, physicians,
lawyers, a Chevalier de Razac and a Duchesse d'Armaille.
Doctors have analysed the crimson fluid which flowed
from the hosts and have certified that it was human
blood ; the very enemies of Vintras, and he has cruel
enemies, do not dispute the miracles, but refer them to
the devil. ^* Now," said the Abbe Chavoz, the priest of
Touraine whom we have mentioned, *'can you tolerate
the notion of the demon falsifying the blood of Christ
Jesus on hosts which have been regularly consecrated } '*
Abbe Chavoz is a real priest, and the signs in question
appeared in hosts which had been hallowed by him. This
notwithstanding, the .sect of Vintras is anarchic and
absurd, and God would not therefore perform miracles
in its favour. There remains the natural explanation of
such phenomena, and in the course of the present work
it has been indicated sufficiently to make further develop-
ment needless.
Vintras, whom his partisans represent as a new
Christ, has also had his Iscariots ; two members of the
sect, a certain Gozzoli and another named Alexandre
GeoflFroi, published the most scandalous revelations against
^ See my Mysteries of Magic: a Digest of ike Writings of Eliphas
Livi,
465 2 G
The History of Magic
him.^ According to them, the devotees of Tilly-sur-Seules
— which was the place of their residence — were given over
to the most obscene practices ; they celebrated in their
private chapel, which they termed the upper chamber,
sacrilegious masses, at which the elect assisted in a state
of complete nudity. At a given moment all present fell
into a paroxysm, and with tears and cries of "Love,
Love,*' they cast themselves into each other's arms ; the
rest we may be permitted to suppress. It was like the
orgies of the old Gnostics, but without even taking the
precaution to extinguish the lights. Alexandre GeofFroi
testifies that Vintras initiated him into a kind of prayer
which consisted in the monstrous act of Onan, committed
at the foot of the altar, but here the accuser is too odious
to be believed on his own word. Abbe Chavoz, to whom
we mentioned these infamous impeachments, explained
that they must be attributed to the hatred of two men
who had been expelled from the association for having
been guilty on their own part of the acts which they
attributed to Vintras. However it may be, moral dis-
orders engender naturally those of a physical kind, and
abnormal excitements of the nervous system produce
almost invariably eccentric irregularities in morals: if
therefore Vintras is innocent, he might have been and
may yet be guilty. His sect was condemned formally
by Gregory XVI in his brief, dated November 8, 1843.
We append a specimen of the style which this illumine
adopted ; he is a man without education and his bom-
bastic writings swarm with grammatical errors.
** Sleep, sleep, ye indolent mortals ; rest, and still rest
on your soft couches ; smile at your dreams of festivals
and grandeurs. The angel of the covenant has come
down on your mountains ; he has written his name even
in the cups of your flowers ; the rings on his feet have
* The charges are contained in a pamphlet entitled Le Prophtte
Vintras, published by Gozzoli in 185 1. I do not think that Geoffroi
wrote anything.
466
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
touched the rivers which are your pride and hope; the
oaks of your forests have borrowed the tincture of a new
morning from the radiance of his brow ; the sea has made
answer to his glance with a yearning leap. She has gone
before him ; prostrate yourselves upon the earth and be
not alarmed at the continuous sound heard in the graves
beneath. Sleep, and still sleep. He is engraving his
name on the high hills ; he is calling on time to speed
his ship, and I have seen the oldest of the old smile at
him. Sleep therefore and sleep ; Elias, in the West, sets
a cross at the gate of the temple ; he seals it with fire and
with the steel of a dagger."
Still the temple, and still fire and dagger. It is
strange assuredly how the fools reflect one another; all
fanaticisms interweave their inspirations and the prophet
of Louis XVII is here an echo of the vengeance-cry of
the Templars.
It is true that Vintras does not hold himself respon-
sible for what he writes ; this is how he speaks on the
subject. **If my mind counted for anything in these
condemned works, I should bow my head and fear would
possess my soul. But the work is not my work, and I
have had no concurrence therein, either by research or
desire. Calm is within me ; my couch knows no vigils ;
watches have not wearied my eyes ; my sleep is pure, as
when God first gave it ; I can say to my God with a free
heart : Custodi animam meum et erue me : non eruhescarriy
quoniam speravi in /^.'*
Another reputed reformer, he who posed as the
Messiah of prisons and the scaflFold, namely, Lacenaire,
with whom we do not assuredly seek to compare Vintras,
wrote thus'in his prison : ** As a chaste and pure virgin,
I wake and I sleep, ever in dreams of love. Who shall
teach me the meaning of remorse i *' The argument of
Vintras, in order to legalise his inspiration, is not there-
fore conclusive, for it has also served Lacenaire, to excuse
and even legitimise not only reveries but crimes.
467
The History of Magic
Condemned by the Pope, the sect of Tilly-sur-Seules
condemned the Pope in their turn, and Vintras, on his
private warrant, constituted himself sovereign pontiff.
The shape of his priestly vestments was revealed to him ;
he wears a golden diadem, having an Indian lingam over
the forehead ; he is vested in a purple robe and carries
a magical sceptre terminated by a hand, the fingers of
which are closed excepting the thumb and little finger,
being those consecrated to Venus and Mercury, em-
blematic of the antique hermaphrodite, the emblem of
the old ceremonial orgies and the obscene pageants of
the Sabbath. So do the memories and reflections of
Black Magic, transmitted by the Astral Light, connect
the mysteries of India and the profane worship of
Baphomet with the ecstasies of this contagious being,
whose infirmary is at London, and who continues there
to make proselytes and victims.^
The exaltation of the unfortunate prophet is by no
means exempt from terrors and remorse, whatever he
may have alleged to the contrary, and mournful con-
fessions escape him from time to time. An example
occurs in a letter written to one of his most intimate
friends. *' I am always expecting new torments. To-
morrow the Verger family will come, and I shall behold
in their faces the purity of their soul manifested in their
joy of spirit. It will recall my past happiness; names
will be mentioned which I pronounced lovingly myself
in days not far away. That which will be a delight for
others will bring me new tortures. I shall sit at the
table, and whilst my heart is pierced with a sword, I
shall have to smile. O, if perchance those terrible words
which I have heard were not eternal, I might still embrace
my cruel torment. Pardon, most dear, I cannot live
without loving God. Listen, if your human charity
^ Vintras was arrested at Tilly-sur-Seules in 1842 on a charge of
roguery ; he was tried at Caen and condemned to five years' imprison-
ment. After his release in 1848, he found an asylum in England.
468
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
permits you, as minister of the living God ; I do not
protest ; he whom your Master has spewed out of his
mouth must be anathematised by you : On the night of
Monday, being May 17 or 1 8, a frightful dream struck
a mortal blow at soul and body alike. I was at Sainte-
Paix, and there was no one in the house, though the
doors were open. I had ascended hurriedly to the
holy chapel and was about to open the door when I saw
emblazoned thereon in characters of fire : ' Dare not to
enter this place, thou whom I have spewed from my
mouth.' ... I could not retreat; I fell down overcome
on the first step ; and you can judge of my terror when
1 saw on every side a vast and deep abyss, with hideous
monsters therein who hailed me as their brother. The
thought came to me at that moment that the holy arch-
angel also once called me his brother. What a difference.
His salutation caused my soul to leap with the most
intense joy ; and at theirs I writhed in convulsions
similar to those which they had experienced through the
power with which God endowed my cross of grace at
their apparition on April 28 last.
** I tried to cling to something, so that 1 might not
fall into the bottomless gulf. I turned to the Mother
of God, the divine Mary, and called on her to help me.
She was deaf to my voice. During all this time I con-
tinued writhing, leaving strips of my §kin on the rugged
points which bordered this terrible abyss. Suddenly
whirlpools of flame rose towards me from that depth
wherein I was about to fall. I heard yells of ferocious
joy and could pray no longer, when a voice more terrific
than long echoes of thunder in a violent tempest filled
my ears, uttering these words : * You think to overcome
me but it is you who are conquered. I have taught you
to be humble after my manner. Come, taste of my
sweetness ; be numbered among my elect, and learn also
to know the tyrant of heaven ; join with us in uttering
blasphemies and imprecations against him ; all else is
469
The History of Magic
useless, so far as you are concerned.' Then after a scream
of laughter the voice added : * Behold Mary, her whom
you called your shield against us; behold her gracious
smile and listen to her gentle voice.'
** Dear friend, I saw her above the abyss ; her eyes of
celestial blue were filled with fire, her red lips were violet,
her mild and divine voice had become hard and terrible,
and like thunderbolt she hurled these words at me:
' Writhe, proud one, in those fiery regions inhabited by
demons.'
" All my blood flowed back to my heart ; it seemed
that the hour had struck wherein an earthly hell was to
replace the hell that is eternal ; I could still utter a few
words of the Ave^ Maria, How the time passed I knew
not, but on returning the servant was asleep and said
that it was late. O, if only I revealed to the enemies of
the Work of Mercy that which passes within me, would
they not cry victory ? They would say that here indeed
was evidence of monomania. Would God that it were
so, for I should have less to lament. And yet fear
nothing ; if God will not hear my voice when it pleads
my own cause, I will pray Him to double my suflFerings,
on condition that he hides them from my enemies."
Here triumphant hallucination reaches the point of
the sublime ; Vintras consents to be damned, provided
he is not classed as a fool. It is the last instinct of
reason's inestimable value, surviving reason itself. The
drunken man is afraid only of being regarded as drunk ;
the monomaniac chooses death rather than admit his
delirium. The explanation is that, according to the
beautiful sentence of Cebcs, already quoted, there is only
one good desirable for man ; it is that wisdom which is
the practice of reason : there is also one only true and
supreme misfortune to dread, which is madness.
470
CHAPTER III
MESMERISTS AND SOMNAMBULISTS
The Church in its great wisdom forbids us to consult
oracles and to violate by indiscreet curiosity the secrets
of futurity. In our day the voice of the Church is no
longer heeded ; the p. ople go back to diviners and
pythonesses ; the somnambulists have become prophets
for those who believe no longer in the gospel precepts.
It is not realised that preoccupation over a predicted
event suppresses our freedom in a sense and paralyses
our means of defence ; by consulting Magic, to foresee
future events, we give earnests to fatality. The som-
nambulists are the sibyls of our epoch, as the sibyls were
somnambulists of antiquity ; happy are those querents
who do not place their credulity at the service of immoral
or senseless magnetists, for by the very fact of their
friendly consultations they place themselves in com-
munion with the immorality or folly of those who inspire
the oracle ; the business of the mesmerist is easy and his
dupes are manifold. Among those who are devoted to
magnetism it is therefore important to know who are in
earnest.
Among these, M. le Baron Du Potet must be
placed in the front rank, and his conscientious work
has already done much to advance the science of
Mesmer. He has opened at Paris a practical school of
magnetism, to which the public is admitted for instruc-
tion in the processes and verification of the phenomena
obtained.
Baron Du Potet is of an exceptional and highly
471
The History of Magic
intuitive nature. Like all our contemporaries, including
the most instructed, he knows nothing of the Kabalah
and its mysteries, but magnetism has notwithstanding
revealed to him the science of Magic, and as it is still
dread in his eyes, he has concealed that which he has
found, even while feeling it necessary to reveal it. The
book which he has written on the subject is sold only to
his adepts and then under the seal absolute of secrecy.-^
We have entered into no bond with M. Du Potet, but
we shall reserve his secret out of respect for the convic-
tions of a hierophant. It is sufficient to say that his
work is the most remarkable of all products of pure
intuition. We do not regard it as dangerous, because
the writer indicates forces without being precise as to
their use. He is aware that we can do good or evil, can
destroy or save by means of magnetic processes, but the
nature of these is not clearly and practically put forward,
on which we ofFer him our felicitations, for the right of
life and death presupposes a divine sovereignty, and we
should regard its possessor as unworthy if he consented
to sell it — in what manner soever.
M. Du Potet establishes triumphantly the existence
of that universal light wherein lucids perceive all images
and all reflections of thought. He assists the vital pro-
jection of this light by means of an absorbent apparatus
which he calls the Magic Mirror ; it is simply a circle or
square covered with powdered charcoal, finely sifted. In
this negative space, the combined light projected by the
magnetic subject and the operator soon tinges and realises
the forms corresponding to their nervous impressions.
The somnambulist sees manifested therein all dreams of
opium and hasheesh, and if he were not distracted from
the spectacle convulsions would follow.
^ See La France Mystique^ vol. i. p. 36 et seq. for a contemporary
account of Du Potet and of the periodical magnetic seances which took
place au dessus du restaurant des Freres ProvcfK^aux^ au Perron du
Palais-Royal,
472
Magic in the Nineteenth Ce7itury
The phenomena are analogous to those of hydro-
mancy as practised by Cagliostro ; the process of staring
at water dazzles and troubles the sight ; the fatigue of
the eye, in its turn, favours hallucinations of the brain.
Cagliostro sought to secure for his experiments virgin
subjects in a state of perfect innocence, so as to set aside
interference due to nervous divagations occasioned by
erotic reminiscences. Du Potet's Magic Mirror is per-
haps more fatiguing for the nervous system as a whole,
but the dazzlements of hydromancy would have a more
dangerous eiFect upon the brain .^
M. Du Potet is one of those deeply convinced men
who suffer bravely the disdain of science and the pre-
judgment of opinion, repeating beneath his breath the
profession of secret faith cherished by Galileo : E pur si
muove. It has been discovered quite recently that the
tables turn, as the earth itself turns, and that human
magnetisation imparts to portable articles, made subject
to the influence of mediums, a specific movement of
rotation. Objects of extraordinary weight can be lifted
and transported through space by this force, for weight
exists only by reason of equilibrium between the two
forces of the Astral Light. Augment the action of one
of them and the other will give way immediately. Now,
if the nervous apparatus indraws and expels this light,
rendering it positive or negative according to the personal
super-excitation of the subject, all inert bodies submitted
to its action and impregnated with its life will become
lighter or heavier, following the flux and reflux of the
light which — in the new equilibrium of its movement —
draws porous bodies and non-conductors about a living
centre, as planets in space are drawn, balanced and gravi-
tate about their sun.
This excentric power of attraction or projection sup-
^ According to another account, the Magic Mirror was an ordinary
circle of evocation drawn with charcoal. Wandering spirits were sup-
posed to be conjured therein.
473
The History of Magic
poses invariably a diseased condition in the person who
is the subject thereof; the mediums are all excentric
and badly equilibrated beings ; mediomania supposes or
occasions a sequence of other nervous manias, fixed
notions, deordinated appetites, disorderly erotomania,
tendencies to murder or suicide. Among persons so
affected moral responsibility seems to exist no more ;
they do evil with good as their motive ; they shed tears
of emotion in a church and may be surprised at baccha-
nalian orgies. They have a way of explaining everything
— by the devil or the spirits which obsess and carry
them away. What would you have of them? They
live no more in themselves; some mysterious creature
animates them and acts in their place ; this being is
named ** Legion.'*
The reiterated efforts of a healthy person to develop
mediumistic faculties cause fatigue, disease and may even
derange reason. It is this which happened to Victor
Hennequin, formerly an editor of La Democratie Pacifique
and, after 1848, a member of the National Assembly.
He was a young barrister, with a plentiful flow of
eloquence, wanting neither education nor talent, but he
was infatuated with the reveries of Fourier. Being
banished as an after consequence of December 2, he took
up table-turning during his enforced ijnactivity ; he fell
a victim all too soon to mediomania and believed himself
an instrument for the revelations of the soul of the earth.
He published a book entitled : Save the Human Race ;
it was a medley of socialistic and Christian reminiscences ;
a last gleam of reason flickered therein ; but the ex-
periences continued and folly triumphed. In a final
work, of which only one volume was issued, Victor
Hennequin represents God in the guise of an immense
polypus located at the centre of the earth, having
antennae and horns turned inwards like tendrils all over
his brain, as also over that of his wife Octavia. Soon
afterwards it was reported that Victor Hennequin had
474
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
died from the consequences of a maniacal paroxysm in
a madhouse.^
We have also heard of a lady belonging to the aris-
tocracy who gave herself up to communications with
pretended spirits in tables and who, scandalised beyond
measure at the unsuitable replies of her particular piece
of furniture, undertook a journey to Rome to submit the
heretical article to the chair of St. Peter. She carried
it with her and had an auto-ia-fi in the capital of the
Christian world. Better to burn her furniture than to
court madness, and to say the truth it was an imminent
danger for the lady here in question. Let us not laugh
at the episode — for we arc children of an age of reason
in which men who pass as serious, like the Comte de
Mirville, ascribe to the devil unexplained phenomena of
Nature.
In a drama which is well known on the boulevards
there is much to be heard of a magician who, requiring
a formidable auxiliary, created an automaton, being a
monster with the paws of a lion, a bull's horns and the
scales of leviathan. To this hybrid sphinx he imparted
life, but took flight incontinently, being terrified at the
work of his hands. The monster followed in pursuit,
appeared between him and his betrothed, set fire to his
house, burnt his father, carried oflF his son, and con-
tinuing the chase to the sea, followed him on board a
ship which he caused to be engulphed, but finally made
an end of himself amidst thunder. This awful spectacle,
rendered visible by fear, has been realised in the history
of humanity ; poetry has personified the phantom of evil
and has endowed it with all forces of Nature. It has
sought to enlist the chimera as an aid to morality, and
has then gone in fear of the ugliness begotten by its
^ His madness is said otherwise to have been partial, or characterised
by many lucid intervals. His second work was Religion^ and it preached
the doctrine of reincarnation, with periodical changes of sex. 1 1 described
the Deity as an infinite substance in which circulated myriads of soul-
entities.
475
The History of Magic
own dreams. From this time forward, the monster has
pursued us through the ages ; it makes grimaces between
us and the objects of our love ; an impure nightmare,
it strangles our children in their sleep ; it carries through
creation, that father's house of humanity, the inextin-
guishable torch of hell ; it burns and tortures our parents
everlastingly ; it spreads black wings to hide heaven from
our eyes ; it shrieks to us : ** Hope no more.'* It mounts
the crupper and gallops behind us like remorse ; it plunges
into the ocean of despair the last rock of our hopes ;
it is the old Persian Ahriman, the Egyptian Typhon,
the darksome god confessed by the heretics of Manes,
the Comte de Mirviile and the Black Magic of the devil ;
it is the world's horror and the idol of bad Christians.
Men have tried to laugh at it and have been afraid ; they
have caricatured it and then trembled, for the cartoons
have seemed to take life and to mock at those who made
them. All this notwithstanding, its reign is over, though
it will not perish overwhelmed by a bolt from heaven ;
science has conquered the lightning and converted it into
torches ; the monster will dissolve before the brightness
of science and truth ; the genius of ignorance and dark-
ness can only be blasted by the light.
476
CHAPTER IV
THE FANTASTIC SIDE OF MAGICAL LITERATURE
It is now twenty years since Alphonse Esquiros,^ one of
the friends of our childhood, issued a work of high
fantasy, entitled the Magician, All that the romanticism
of that period conceived to be most bizarre was embodied
in the story; the author provided his magus with a
seraglio of dead ladies, embalmed according to a process
which has since been discovered by Gannal. The
characters included an automaton of bronze who
preached chastity, a hermaphrodite who was in love
with the moon and conducted a regular correspondence
with that satellite : there were other wonderful things
which one has forgotten at this day. Alphonse Esquiros
may be said to have founded a school of fantasiasts in
Magic by the publication of this romance, its most
distinguished present representative being the young and
interesting Henri Delaage, who is a productive writer,
an unrecognised thaumaturgist and a gifted charmer.
His style is not less astonishing than were the notions
of Alphonse Esquiros, his initiator and master. Thus,
in his book dealing with those who have risen from the
dead, he remarks as follows concerning some objection
against Christianity : " I take this objection by the throat
and, when I loose my grasp, the earth shall resound
sullenly under the weight of its strangled corpse.'* It
is true that his reply to the objection comes to very
little ; but what would you, when an objection has been
* His other works include the Gospel of the People, 1840, to which
^liphas Ldvi refers subsequently. For this he was imprisoned. In
1847 he published a Histoire des Montagnards. At the end of 185 1 he
was compelled to leave France, and seems to have lived in England.
Henri Alphonse Esquiros was bom in 1814.
477
The History of Magic
strangled and when the earth has resounded sullenly
under the weight of its body ?
We have said that Henri Delaage is an unrecognised
thaumaturgist. As a fact he has informed a person
of our acquaintance that during a winter when influenza
was prevalent, it was suflicient for him to enter a room
and every one who happened to be therein was cured
immediately. Unhappily he became himself a victim
of the miracle, for he contracted a slight hoarseness
which has never left him. Many of our friends declare
that he has the gift of ubiquity ; he is left at the office
of ha Patrie and is found again with his publisher Dantu ;
one retires in dismay and goes home, there to find —
Delaage awaiting one's arrival. He is a skilful charmer.
A society lady who had been reading one of his books
testified that she knew nothing better written or more
beautiful, but it is not to his works alone that Delaage
imparts beauty. We had been reading an article signed
Fiorentino which said that the physical attractions of the
young magician equalled or even surpassed those of
angels. We encountered Delaage and questioned him
with curiosty on this singular revelation. Delaage then
put his hand in his waistcoat, turned three parts round
and looked smiling to heaven ; it happened fortunately
that we were carrying the Enchiridion of Leo III, which
is known to preserve from enchantments, so that the
charmer's angelical beauty was hidden from our eyes.
Let us oflFer on our part a more serious eulogium to
Henri Delaage than do those who admire his good looks ;
he is sincere when he says that he is a catholic and when
he proclaims loudly his love and respect for religion.
Now religion can make you a saint, and this title is more
estimable and glorious than that of a sorcerer.^
* Henri Delaage seems to have taken the que&tion of physical beauty
rather seriously to heart. In 1850, under the title of Perfectionnement
physique de la Race Humaine^ he made a collection of processes and
methods for acquiring beauty, drawn — as he claimed — from Chaldean
Magi and Hermetic Philosophers.
478
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
It is owing to his rank as a publicist that we have
placed this young man in the first place among the
Fantasiasts of Magic, but in all other respects it belongs
to the Comte D'Ourches, a man of venerable age who
has devoted his life and fortune to mesmeric experiments.
Ladies in a state of somnambulism, and any furniture at
his house, give themselves up to frenzied dances; the
furniture becomes worn out and is broken, but it is said
that the ladies are all the better for their gyrations.
For a long time the Comte D'Ourches has been
dominated by a fixed idea, which is the fear of being
buried alive, and he has written a number of memorials
on the need for verifying decease in a more certain way
than obtains usually. He has some justification for
such a fear on his own part because his temperament
is plethoric, while his extreme nervous susceptibility,
continually superexcited by experiments with fair som-
nambulists, may expose him to attacks of apoplexy. In
magnetism he is the pupil of Abbe Faria and in necro-
mancy he belongs to the school of Baron de Gulden-
stubby. The latter has published a work entitled
Practical Exferimental Pneumatology^ or the Reality of
Spirits and the Marvellous Phenomenon of their Direct
Writing. He gives an account of his discovery as
follows: "It was in the course of the year 1850, or
about three years prior to the epidemic of table-rapping,
that the author sought to introduce into France the
circles of American spiritualism, the mysterious Rochester
knockings and the purely automatic writing of mediums.
Unfortunately he met with many obstacles raised by
other mesmerists. Those who were committed to the
hypothesis of a magnetic fluid, and even those who
styled themselves Spiritual Mesmerists, but who were
really inferior inducers ot somnambulism, treated the
mysterious knockings of American Spiritualism as vision-
ary follies. It was therefore only after more than six
months that the author was able to form his first circle
479
The History of Magic
on the American plan, and then thanks to the zealous
concurrence of M. Roustan, a former member of the
SociH^ des Magnitiseurs SpiritualisteSy a simple man who
was full of enthusiasm for the holy cause of spiritualism.
We were joined by a number of other persons, amongst
whom was the Abbe Chatel/ founder of the Eglise
Fran9aise, who, despite his rationalistic tendencies, ended
by admitting the reality of objective and supernatural
revelation, as an indispensable condition of spiritualism
and all practical religions. Setting aside the moral
conditions, which are equally requisite, it is known that
American circles are based on the distinction of positive
and electric or negative magnetic currents.
'*The circles consist of twelve persons, representing
in equal proportions the positive and negative or sensitive
elements. This distinction does not follow the sex of
the members, though generally women are negative and
sensitive, while men are positive and magnetic. The
mental and physical constitution of each individual must
be studied before forming the circles, for some delicate
women have masculine qualities, while some strong men
are, morally speaking, women. A table is placed in
a clear and ventilated spot ; the medium is seated at
one end and entirely isolated ; by his calm and contem-
plative quietude he serves as a conductor for the
electricity, and it may be noted that a good somnam-
bulist is usually an excellent medium. The six electrical
or negative dispositions, which are generally recognised
by their emotional qualities and their sensibility, are
placed at the right of the medium, the most sensitive
^ The Eglise Fran^aise was forcibly closed about 1840, but in 1848 an
attempt was made to reopen it in a small room. A particular kind of
Mass was celebrated in the French language, and it appears that the
church had fixed festivals of its own. In doctrinal matters, Abb^
Chatel regarded the relation between God and the universe as compar-
able to that between the soul and body, "but in an infinitely more
excellent manner." Paradise, Purgatory and Hell were alike abolished,
and in their place two states were substituted, one of glory and felicity,
the other of reparation.
480
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
of all being next him. The same rule is followed with
the positive personalities, who are at the left of the
medium, with the most positive among them next to him.
In order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place
their right hand on the table and their left hand on that
of their neighbour, thus making a circle round the table.
Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more
than one, are entirely isolated from those who form
the chain.
"After a number of stances, certain remarkable
phenomena have been obtained, such as simultaneous
shocks, felt by all present at the moment of mental
evocation on the part of the most intelligent persons.
It is the same with mysterious knockings and other
strange sounds; many people, including those least
sensitive, have had simultaneous visions, though remain-
ing in the ordinary waking state. Sensitive persons
have acquired that most wonderful gift of mediumship,
namely, automatic writing as the result of an invisible
attraction which uses the non-intelligent instrument of
a human arm to express its ideas. For the rest, non-
sensitive persons experience the mysterious influence of
an external wind, but the effect is not strong enough
to put their limbs in motion. All these phenomena,
obtained according to the mode of American spiritualism,
have the defect of being more or less indirect, because
it is impossible in these experiences to dispense with the
mediation of a human being or medium. It is the same
with the table-turning which invaded Europe in the
middle of the year 1853.
" The author has had many table experiences with his
honourable friend, the Comte d'Ourches, one of the
most instructed persons in Magic and the Occult Sciences.
We attained by degrees the point when tables moved
apart from any contact whatever, while the Comte
d'Ourches has caused them to rise, also without con-
tact. The author has made tables rush across a room
481 2 H
The History of Magic
with great rapidity and not only without contact but
without the magnetic aid of a circle of sitters. The
vibration of piano-chords under similar circumstances
took place on January 20, 1856, in the presence of the
Comte de Szapary and Comte d'Ourches. Now all such
phenomena are proof positive of certain occult forces,
but they do not demonstrate adequately the real and
substantial existence of unseen intelligences, independent
of our will and imagination, though the limits of these
have been vastly extended in respect of their possibilities.
Hence the reproach made against American spiritualists,
because their communications with the world of spirits
are so insignificant in character, being confined to mys-
terious knockings and other sound vibrations. As a
fact, there is no direct phenomenon at once intelligent
and material, independent of our will and imagination,
to compare with the direct writing of spirits, who have
neither been invoked nor evoked, and it is this only
which offers irrefutable proof as to the reality of the
supernatural world.
** The author, being always in search of such proof,
at once intelligent and palpable, concerning the sub-
stantial reality of the supernatural world, in order to
demonstrate by certain facts the immortality of the soul,
has never wearied of addressing fervent prayers to the
Eternal, that He might vouchsafe to indicate an infallible
means for strengthening that faith in immortality which
is the eternal basis of religion. The Eternal, Whose
mercy is infinite, has abundantly answered this feeble
prayer. On August ist, 1856, the idea came to the
author of trying whether spirits could write directly,
that is, apart from the presence of a medium. Remem-
bering the marvellous direct writing of the Decalogue,
communicated to Moses, and that other writing, equally
direct and mysterious, at the feast of Belshazzar, re-
corded by Daniel ; having further heard about those
modern mysteries of Stratford in America, where certain
482
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
strange and illegible characters were found upon slips
of paper, apparently apart from mediumship, the author
sought to establish the actuality of such important pheno-
mena, if indeed within the limits of possibility.
** He therefore placed a sheet of blank letter paper
and a sharply pointed pencil in a box, which he then
locked and carried the key about him, imparting his
design to no one. Twelve days he waited in vain, but
what was his astonishment on August 13, 1856, when he
found certain mysterious characters traced on the paper.
He repeated the experiment ten times on that day,
placing a new sheet of paper each time in the box, with
the same result invariably. On the following day he
made twenty experiments but left the box open, without
losing sight of it. He witnessed the formation of char-
acters and words in the Esthonian language with no
motion of the pencil. The latter being obviously useless
he decided to dispense with it and placed blank paper
sometimes on a table of his own, sometimes on the
pedestals of old statues, on sarcophagi, on urns, &c., in
the Louvre, at St. Denis, at the church of St. Etienne du
Mont, &c. Similar experiments were made in different
cemeteries of Paris, but the author has no liking for
cemeteries, while most spirits prefer the localities where
they have lived on earth to those in which their mortal
remains are laid to rest."
We are far from disputing the singular phenomena
observed by Baron de Guldenstubbe, but would point
out to him that the discovery had been made previously
by Lavater and that the water-colour portrait^ painted
by the Kabalist Gablidone is of far greater importance than
the few lines of writing obtained on his part. Speaking
next in the name of science, we would tell him, not
indeed for his benefit, seeing that he will not believe us,
but for serious observers of these strange phenomena,
* See the appendix to Essai sur le Secte dcs liluminJs, by the Marquis
de Luchet, already quoted.
483
The History of Magic
that the writings obtained by himjio not come from the
other world but have been made unconsciously by him-
self. We would say to him that your experiments, so
unduly multiplied, and the excessive tension of your will,
have destroyed the equilibrium of your fluidic and astral
body ; you have compelled it to realise your dreams and
it has traced, in characters borrowed from your own
remembrance, the reflections of your imagination and of
your thoughts. Had . you been placed in a perfectly
lucid state of magnetic sleep, you would have seen a
luminous counterpart of your hand, lengthened out like
a shadow in the setting sun ; you would have seen it
trace on the paper prepared by yourself or your friends
those characters which haVe so much surprised you.
That corporeal light which emanates from the earth and
from you is contained by a fluidic envelope of extreme
elasticity, and that envelope is formed from the quint-
essence of your vital spirits and your blood. This
quintessence derives from the light a colour determined
by your secret will ; it is made in the likeness of your
dream, and the characters are impressed on the paper
as signs on the bodies of unborn children are imprinted
by the imagination of their mothers. That which seems
to you ink is your blackened and transfigured blood.
You are expending yourself in proportion as such writ-
ings multiply. If you continue your experiments, your
brain will be weakened gradually and your memory will
suffer. You will experience unspeakable pains in the
joints of the limbs and fingers, and you will finally die,
either struck down suddenly or after a prolonged agony,
characterised by hallucinations and madness. So much
for Baron de Guldenstubbe.
To the Comte d'Ourches we would say : You will
not be buried alive, but you run the risk of dying by the
very precautions which you are taking against such a
possibility. The awakening of those who are so buried
can only be rapid and brief, but they may live long
484
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
underground, conserved by the Astral Light in a com-
plete state of lucid somnambulism. Their souls are then
bound to the sleeping body by an invisible chain, and
if those souls are greedy and criminal, they can draw
on the quintessence of the blood in persons who are
naturally asleep ; they can transmit this sap to their
interred bodies for their longer preservation, in the vague
hope that they may be restored ultimately to life. It
is this frightful phenomenon which is called vampirism,
and its reality has been established by many cases as well
attested as the most serious things in history. If you
question the possibility of this magnetic life of the human
body under earth, read the following account of an
English officer, named Osborne, the good faith of which
was attested to Baron du Potet by General Ventura.
** On June 6, 183 8," says Mr. Osborne, "the monotony
of our camp-life was happily interrupted by the arrival
of an individual who was famous throughout the Pun-
jaub. He was the subject of great veneration among
the Sikhs because of his power to remain buried under-
ground for so long a time as he pleased. Such extra-
ordinary stories are told of this man, and their authenticity
has been guaranteed by so many reputable persons, that
we were most anxious to see him. He told us on his
own part that he had followed this business of interment
for a number of years in various parts of India. Among
serious and creditable people who have borne witness
in his favour I may mention Captain Wade, the political
agent at Lodhran. This officer has told me most
seriously that he himself assisted at the resurrection of
the said fakir after a burial which took place several
months previously, in the presence of General Ventura,
the Maharajah and the principal Sikh chiefs. The
details concerning the interment as given to Captain
Wade, and those which he added on his own authority
respecting the exhumation are as follows.
" After certain precautions which lasted for several
485
The History of Magic
days and the details of which are distasteful, the fakir
announced that he was ready to undergo the trial. The
Maharajah, Sikh chiefs and General Ventura assembled
round a grave of stone-work constructed for the express
purpose. In their presence the fakir sealed up with wax
every opening of his body by which air could enter,
with the exception of the mouth ; he then cast off his
garments, was enveloped in a linen bag and, by his own
wish, his tongue was turned back so that it obstructed
the gullet. He fell after this into a kind of lethargy.
The bag which contained him was closed up, and a seal
was placed therein by the Maharajah. It was then put
into a sealed and padlocked chest, which was lowered
into the grave. A large quantity of earth was thrown
on it ; it was trodden down and barley was sown therein.
Finally, sentinels were stationed round the spot, with
orders to watch day and night.
" These precautions notwithstanding, the Maharajah
still had doubts ; thrice during the period of ten months,
during which the fakir was to remain interred, he visited
the grave and had it opened in his presence, but the body
was in the sack, just as it had been placed therein, cold
and inanimate to all appearance. When the ten months
had expired, the fakir was exhumed finally. General
Ventura and Captain Wade undid the padlocks, broke
the seals and raised the chest from the grave. The
fakir was taken out, but there was no indication of life
either at heart or pulse. As a first means to reanimate
him, one of the spectators inserted his finger very gently
in the mouth and restored the tongue to its natural
position. The top of the head was the sole seat of any
sensible heat. By pouring warm water slowly over the
body, some signs of life were obtained by degrees. After
two hours of attention, the fakir rose up and began to
move about smiling.
" The extraordinary being declared that he had deli-
cious dreams during his entombment, but that the time
486
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
of awaking was always exceedingly painful and that he
was in a state of vertigo before his return to conscious-
ness; his age is about thirty years, his countenance is
ill-favoured and his expression somewhat crafty. We
had long conversations with him, and he offered to be
buried in our presence. We took him at his word and
appointed a meeting at Lahore, where we promised that
he would remain underground throughout our stay in
that city."
Such was the story of Osborne. The question was
whether the fakir would really allow himself to be in-
terred once more. The new experiment might well be
decisive. But that which happened was as follows.
*' Fifteen days after the fakir's visit to their camp, the
English officers arrived at Lahore. They chose a spot
which seemed favourable for the coming operation, had
a mural tomb constructed, as well as a very solid chest,
and then awaited the fakir. He came on the day follow-
ing, expressing an ardent desire to prove that he was
no impostor. He stated further that he had made the
necessary preparations for an experiment, but his de-
meanour evidenced a certain disquiet and despondency.
He began to stipulate concerning his compensation, which
was fixed at fifteen hundred rupees down and two
thousand rupees annually, which the officers undertook
to obtain from the king. Satisfied on this point, he
wished to be informed as to the precautions that they
were proposing to take. The officers shewed him the
chest, the keys belonging thereto, and warned him that
sentinels chosen among the English soldiers would watch
round the place for a week. The fakir cried out and
gave vent to much abuse of the Firinghees and sceptics,
who sought to rob him of his reputation. He expressed
also a fear that some attempt would be made on his life
and, refusing to trust himself entirely to the surveillance
of Europeans, he demanded that duplicate keys should
be committed to one of his co-religionists, further insist-
487
The History of Magic
ing — and this indeed above all — that the sentries should
not be enemies of his faith. The officers declined to
entertain these conditions ; several interviews followed,
leading to no result ; and finally the fakir intimated,
through one of the Sikh chiefs, that the Maharajah
having menaced him with his anger if he did not fulfil
his engagement with the English, it was his wish to
undertake the trial, though he rested assured that the
sole object of the officers was to deprive him of life,
and that he would never come forth from his tomb.
The officers admitted that, as to the last point, they all
shared his conviction, adding that as they did not wish
to have his death as a reproach against them, they relieved
him of his promise.
" Are such hesitations and fears proof positive against
the fakir.?* Does it follow that all who have testified
previously how they had beheld with their own eyes the
occurrences to which he owes his celebrity have been
guilty of deception themselves or were the victims of
skilful trickery ? We confess that, having regard to the
extent and quality of the evidence, we cannot doubt that
the fakir was frequently and literally interred ; and even
admitting that after his burial he has on each occasion
continued to communicate with the world above ground,
it would still be inexplicable how he could be deprived
of respiration during the time which intervened between
his burial and that moment when his accomplices came
to his aid. Mr. Osborne adds in a note a quotation from
the Medical Topography of Lodhiana, by Dr. MacGregor,
an English physician, who assisted at one of the ex-
humations, was a witness of the fakir^s lethargy, of his
gradual return to life, and who tries seriously to explain
it. Mr. Boileau, another English officer, in a work pub-
lished some years ago, recounts how he witnessed another
experience which reproduced all the facts in precisely
the same manner. Those who are anxious to satisfy
their curiosity more fully, those who discern in the
488
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
narrative an indication of a curious physiological fact,
may refer with confidence to the sources which are here
indicated/'
A number of official records of the exhumation of
vampires are still extant. In each case the flesh was in
a remarkable state of preservation, but blood oozed from
the body, the hair had grown in an abnormal manner
and protruded in tufts through the chinks of the coffin.
There was no sign of life in the respiratory apparatus,
save in the heart only, and this seemed to have become a
vegetable rather than an anim.al organ. To kill the
vampire, a stake had to be driven through the breast and
then a frightful cry shewed that the somnambulist of the
grave had awakened with a start into a veritable death.
To render such death definitive, swords were driven
point upward into the vampire's grave, for the phantoms
of Astral Light are disintegrated by the action of metallic
points, which attract that light towards the common
reservoir and dissipate its coagulated clusters. To re-
assure nervous people, it may be added that cases of
vampirism are fortunately exceedingly rare and that no
one who is healthy in mind and body can be personally
victimised, unless he or she has been abandoned, body
and soul, to the creature in its lifetime by some criminal
complicity or irregular passion.
The following history of a vampire is related by
Tournefort in his Voyage to the Levant}
'* In the island of Mycona we witnessed a very singular
scene, being the alleged return of a deceased person after
interment. In northern Europe those who come back
in this manner are called vampires, while the Greeks
designated them undec the name of Broucolaques. The
case in question was that of a peasant of Mycona who
was naturally gloomy and quarrelsome. It is a circum-
^ Joseph Pitton de Tournefort : Relation dUin Voyage du Levant^
1717, 2 vols. It was translated into English and published in 3 vols.,
1741.
489
The History of Magic
stance worthy of note, on account of parallel instances.
He was killed in the countryside, no one knew why or
by whom. Two days after his burial in a church of the
city, a report went abroad that he was seen nightly
wandering about at a great pace. He also visited houses,
turned over the furniture, put out the lights, embraced
people from behind and performed innumerable other
tricks. At first it was a laughing matter, but it took a
serious turn when reliable people began to complain.
The priests themselves certified to the fact, and no doubt
they had their reasons. Recourse was had to masses,
said for the purpose, but the peasant continued the same
course with no sign of amendment. After several meet-
ings of the chief persons, priests and monks of the town,
it was concluded to wait for the expiration of nine days
after the interment, following I know not what ancient
procedure. On the tenth day a mass was said in the
church wherein the body had been buried, for the pur-
pose of expelling the demon who was thought to have
entered into it. The mass over, the corpse was dis-
interred and the heart removed. It was necessary to
burn incense owing to the evil smell, but the combination
made bad worse and almost stifled those present. It was
testified that a thick smoke exhaled from the corpse, and
we who were present at the operations did not venture
to suggest that it was really the smoke of the incense.
There were also those who affirmed that the blood of the
unfortunate person was abnormally scarlet, while yet
others declared that the flesh was still warm, whence it
was concluded that the deceased person was seriously
wrong in not being properly dead, or rather in allo'^ing
himself to be brought to life by the devil. This is
precisely the idea which obtains concerning the vampire,
and that word began to be repeated persistently. A
crowd assembled, loudly protesting that the body was
obviously not rigid when it was carried to the church for
burial and that it was therefore a veritable vampire.
490
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
" Appeal being made to us, we expressed the opinion
that the person was undoubtedly dead, and as for the
supposed scarlet blood, it was easy to see that it was only
bad smelling slime. For the rest, we attempted to cure
or at least not provoke further their excited imaginations
by explaining the fumes and warmth attributed to the
corpse. Such arguments notwithstanding, it was deter-
mined to burn the heart of the deceased person, but after
this had been done he was not more amenable than for-
merly and indeed created greater stir. He was accused
of beating people at night, of breaking down doors and
windows, tearing garments and emptying pitchers and
bottles. Altogether, the deceased made himself highly
objectionable. There is reason to believe that he spared
no house save that of the consul, in which we happened
to be lodging. Every imagination was overwrought,
people of good sense being affected as much as others.
A disease of the brain seemed abroad, as dangerous as
that of madness ; entire families abandoned their houses
and carried their pallets to the outskirts, there to pass
the night. Even then they complained of fresh insults,
and the most sober retired into the country. Citizens
who were imbued with a sense of public zeal decided
that one essential detail had been missed, so far, in the
observance ; from their point of view, the mass should
have been celebrated after and not before removing the
heart from the body. With this precaution it was pre-
tended that the devil would have been taken by surprise
and would not have attempted to return ; but unfor-
tunately they began with the mass, which gave him time
to depart and he was able to come back at his ease.
These considerations left matters in their original state
of difficulty. There were meetings and still meetings,
both evening and morning ; there were processions for
three days and three nights ; fasts were imposed on the
priests ; houses were visited by them, asfergillus in hand ;
there was sprinkling with holy water and doors were
491
The History of Magic
purified. Even the mouth of the miserable vampire was
filled with holy water.
**In the midst of such prepossessions, our course
was to say nothing ; we should have been regarded as
jesters and infidels. What however was to be done to
help the inhabitants? Every morning brought a fresh
scene in the comedy by the recital of new pranks of this
nightbird, who was even accused of committing the most
abominable crimes. We did, however, represent more
than once to the governor of the town that in our own
country, under such circumstances, a watch would not
fail to be set, to take note of what passed. The precau-
tion was ultimately taken and led to the arrest of some
vagabonds who were undoubtedly at the bottom of the
disorder. It was, of course, relaxed too soon, and two
days subsequently, to atone for the fast which the said
wastrels had undergone in prison, they betook themselves
to emptying the wine jars in some of the abandoned
houses. After driving in numberless drawn swords over
the grave of the body, people now returned to their
prayers, combined with disinterring the corpse as caprice
led them, when an Albanian, who happened to be there,
pointed out in an authoritative tone that it was highly
ridiculous, in a case of the kind, to make use of the
swords of Christians ; these being cross-handled effec-
tually prevented the devil from leaving the body and his
recommendation was therefore to substitute Turkish
sabres. The advice of this expert came to nothing ; the
vampire was not more tractable, and they knew not what
saint to invoke, when all with one voice, as if a word of
command had been given, cried out through the whole
town that the vampire must be burned completely, after
which they might defy the devil, and that certainly it was
better to have recourse to this extremity rather than that
the island should be deserted. As a fact, certain families
were preparing already for their departure.
" The vampire was therefore carried, by order of the
492
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
governors, to the extremity of the isle of St. George,
where a great pyre had been prepared with tar, lest even
dry wood should not kindle quickly enough. What
remained of the miserable body was cast therein and
speedily consumed. This was on the first day of January,
1 701. Henceforth there were no complaints against the
vampire ; it was agreed that the devil had that time been
overreached and songs were made to deride him.''
It is to be observed in this account of Tournefort that
he admits the reality of the visions which paralysed the
whole people. He does not deny the flexibility or
warmth of the corpse but seeks to explain these with the
praiseworthy object of reassuring those who were con-
cerned. He does not mention the decomposition of the
body but only its evil smell, which is not less charac-
teristic of vampire corpses than of venomous toadstools.
Finally he allows that once the body was burned, the
wonders and visions ceased. But we have wandered far
from the subject of Fantasiasts in Magic ; let us return
to them and, forgetting the problem of vampires, a word
shall be said on the cartomancist, Edmond. He is the
pet sorcerer of ladies in the Quartier de Notre Dame de
Lorette and he occupies, in the Rue Fontaine St. Georges,
No. 30, a dainty little room, where the vestibule is
always full of clients, including those occasionally of the
male sex. Edmond is a man of tall stature, somewhat
stout, of pale complexion, open countenance and sym-
pathetic voice. He appears to believe in his own art and
carries on conscientiously the methods of people like
Etteilla and Mdlle. Lenormand. We have questioned
him as to his processes, and he has answered frankly and
civilly that he has been passionately devoted to the occult
sciences from childhood ; that he began divination early ;
that he is unacquainted with the philosophical secrets
of transcendental knowledge ; and that the keys of the
Kabalah of Solomon are not in his possession. He states,
however, that he is highly sensitive and that the mere
493
The History of Magic
proximity of his clients impresses him so keenly that in a
way he feels their destiny. ** I seem to hear singular
noises and clankings of chains about those who are
doomed to the scaffold, cries and moans round those who
will die violently. Supernatural odours assail and almost
stifle me. One day, in the presence of a veiled lady,
clothed in black, I began to tremble at an odour of straw
and blood. * Madam,' I cried, ' pray leave here, for you
are surrounded by an atmosphere of murder and prison.'
* You say truly,' she answered, unveiling her pale face,
I have been accused of infanticide and have just come out
of prison. Since you have seen the past, tell me also the
future.' "
One of our friends and disciples in Kabalism, utterly
unknown to Edmond, went on a day to consult him and
having paid in advance he awaited the oracles, when
Edmond, rising respectfully, begged him to take back his
money. " I have nothing to tell you," he explained ;
*'your destiny is closed against me by the key of occultism;
whatsoever I might say you would know already as well
as myself." He shewed him out with many bows.
Edmond is also occupied with judicial astrology ; he
erects horoscopes and judges nativities at very moderate
prices. In a word he deals with everything belonging to
his business, which is otherwise a wearisome and dis-
enchanting thing. With how many disordered brains and
diseased hearts must he be continually in relation, and
the imbecile requirements of some, the unjust reproaches
of others, the tiring confidences, the demands for philtres
and spells, the obsessions of fools, all combine in making
him gain his income hardly. To sum up, Edmond is a
somnambulist like Alexis ; he is self-magnetised by his
cards and by the diabolical figures which adorn them ; he
wears black and gives his consultations in a black cabinet ;
in a word, he is the prophet of mystery.
494
CHAPTER V
SOME PRIVATE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WRITER
On a certain morning in 1839 the author of this book
had a visit from Alphonse Esquiros, who said : " Let us
pay our respects to the Mapah." ^ The natural question
arose : ** But in any case, who or what is the Mapah ? "
..." He is a god," was the answer. ..." Many
thanks," said the author, " but I pay my devotions only
to gods unseen." ..." Come notwithstanding ; he is
the most eloquent, most radiant and magnificent fool
in the visible order of things." . . . "My friend, I
am in terror of fools : their complaint is contagious."
..." Granted, dilectissime^ and yet I am calling on
you." . . . "Admitted, and things being so, we will
pay our respects to the Mapah."
In an appalling garret there was a bearded man of
majestic demeanom who invariably wore over his clothes
the tattered cloak of a woman, and had in consequence
rather the air of a destitute dervish. He was surrounded
by several men, bearded and ecstatic like himself, and in
addition to these there was a woman with motionless
features, who seemed like an entranced somnambulist.
* I wish that it were possible to quote the moving panegyric on
Ganneau in a letter addressed by Eliphas L6vi to Alexandre Erdan and
printed by him in La France Mystique^ vol. ii. p. 184-188. He is
described as one of the Hite of intelligence, an artist, a poet of original
and inexhaustible eloquence. He was sometimes bizarre but never
absurd or wearisome. He was, finally, one of those hearts under the
inspiration of which the zealous will crucify themselves with joy for the
ungrateful. Erdan once saw Ganneau addressing a crowd in the Place
de la Concorde, "uplifting his great arms and raising to heaven his
beautiful Christ-like head."
495
The History of Magic
The prophet's manner was abrupt and yet sympathetic ;
he had hallucinated eyes and an infectious quality of
eloquence. He spoke with emphasis, warmed to his
subject quickly, chafed and fumed till a white froth
gathered on his lips. Abbe Lamennais was once termed
" old ninety-three fulfilling its Easter duties." The
catch phrase is more suited to the Mapah and his
mysticism, as will be shewn by a fragment from one
of his lyrical enthusiasms.
" Transgression was inevitable for man : it was decreed
by his destiny, that he might be the instrument of his
own reconstruction, that the greatness and majesty of
God might be manifested in the majesty and greatness of
human toil, passing through its successive phases of light
and darkness. But primitive unity was destroyed by the
Fall ; suffering entered the world in the guise of the
serpent, and the Tree of Life became the Tree of Death.
Things being at this pass, God said to the woman : ' In
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,' yet added after-
wards : ' Thou shalt crush the serpent's head.' And the
first slave was a woman ; she accepted her divine mission,
and the pains of travail began. From the first hour of
the Fall, the task of humanity has been, for this reason,
a great and terrible task of initiation. For this also
the terms of that initiation are all equally sacred in the
eyes of God. Their Alfha is our common mother Eve,
while the Omega is Liberty, who is our common mother
also.
" I beheld a vast ship, having a gigantic mast with its
crow's nest at the top ; one of the ship's extremities
looked to the West, the other to the East. On the
western side it was poised upon the cloudy summits of
three mountains, their bases lost in a raging sea. On the
flank of each mountain was inscribed its ominous name.
The first was Golgotha, the second Mont St. Jean, but
the third was St. Helena. In the middle way of the
mast, on the western side, there was erected a five-armed
496
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
Cx^oss/ on which a woman was expiring. The inscription
above her head was: FRANCE: JUNE i8, 1815:
GOOD FRIDAY. The five arms of the cross repre-
sented the five divisions of the globe ; the woman's head
rested on Europe and was encircled by a cloud. But at
the end of the ship to the East there was no darkness ;
and the keel paused at the threshold of the city of God,
by the summit of a triumphal arch in the full rays of
the sun. Here the woman reappeared, but this time
transfigured and glorious. She rolled away the stone
from the sepulchre, and on that stone was written :
RESTORATION, days of the tomb: July 29, 1830:
Easter.''
It will be seen that the Mapah was a successor of
Catherine Theot and Dom Gerle ; and yet — such is the
strange sympathy between follies — he told Us one day
confidentially that he was Louis XVII returned to earth
for a work of regeneration, while the woman who shared
his life was Marie Antoinette of France. He explained
further that his revolutionary theories were the last word
of the violent pretensions of Cain, destined as such to
insure, by a fatal reaction, the victory of the just Abel.
Now Esquiros and I visited the Mapah to enjoy his
extravagances, but our imaginations were overcome by his
eloquence. We were two college friends, like Louis
Lambert and Balzac, and we had nourished dreams in
common- concerning impossible renunciations and unheard
of heroisms. After visiting Ganneau, for this was the
name of the Mapah, we took it into our heads that it
would be a great thing to communicate the last word of
revolution to the world and to seal the abyss of anarchy,
like Curtius, by casting ourselves therein. Our students'
extravagance gave birth to the Gospel of the People and
the Bible of Liberty, follies for which Esquiros and his ill-
' I suppose that this would be a St. Andrew's cross with the addition
of a vertical branch, on which would rest the head of the crucified
person.
497 2 I
The History of Magic
starred friend paid but too dearly. Hereof is the danger
of enthusiastic manias ; they are catching ; one does not
approach with impunity the edge of the precipice of
madness.
The incident which now follows is a different and
more terrible fatality. A nervous and delicate young
man named Sobrier was numbered among the Mapah's
disciples ; he lost his head completely and believed him-
self predestined to save the world by provoking the
supreme crisis of an universal revolution. The days
of 1848 drew towards the threshold. A commotion
had led to some change in the ministry, but the episode
seemed closed. Paris had an air of contentment and the
boulevards were illuminated. Suddenly a young man
appeared in the populous streets of the Quartier Saint-
Martin. He was preceded by two street Arabs, one
bearing a torch and the other beating to arms. A large
crowd gathered ; the young man got upon a post and
harangued the people. His words were incoherent and
incendiary, but the gist was to proceed to the Boulevard
des Capucines and acquaint the ministry with the will of
the people. The demoniac repeated the same harangue
at every corner of the streets and presently he was
marching at the head of a great concourse, a pistol in
each hand, still heralded by torch and tambour. The
frequenters of the boulevards joined out of mere curiosity,
and subsequently it was a crowd no longer but the
massed populace surging through the Boulevard des
Italiens. In the midst of this the young man and his
street Arabs disappeared, but before the Hotel des Capu-
cines a pistol-shot was fired upon the people. This shot
was the revolution, and it was fired by a fool.
Throughout that night two carts loaded with corpses
perambulated the streets by torchlight ; on the morrow
all Paris was barricaded, and Sobrier was reported at
home in a state of unconsciousness. It was he who,
without knowing what he did, had for a moment shaken
498
Magic 172 the Nineteenth Century
the world. Gaiineau and Sobrier are dead and no harn-i
is done them by reciting this terrible instance of the
magnetism of enthusiasts and the fatalities which may be
entailed by the nervous diseases of certain persons. The
story is drawn from a reliable source and its revelations
may sooth the conscience of that Belisarius of poetry who
is the author of the History of the Girondins.
The magnetic phenomena produced by Ganneau con-
tinued even after his death. His widow, a woman of no
education and little intelligence, the daughter of an honest
peasant of Auvergne, remained in the static somnambu-
lism in which she had been placed by her husband.'
Like the child which assumes the form of its mother's
imagination, she has become a living image of Marie
Antoinette, when a prisoner at the Conciergerie. Her
manners are those of a queen who is widowed and deso-
late for ever ; a complaint sometimes escapes her, as
though she were weary of her dream, but she is
sovereignly indignant with any who seek to awake
her. For the rest, she has no symptom of mental
alienation ; her outward conduct is reasonable, her life
perfectly honourable and regular. Nothing is more
pathetic, to our thinking, than this persistent obsession of
a being fondly loved who lives again in a conjugal hallu-
cination. Had Artemis existed literally it would be
permissible to believe that Mausol was also a powerful
mesmerist, and that he had gained and fixed for ever the
affections of an extremely sensitive woman, outside all
limits of free will and reason.
^ There was a son of this marriage, and in 1855 M. Alexandre Erdan
was inquiring what had become of him.
499
CHAPTER VI
THE OCCULT SCIENCES
The secret of the occult sciences is that of Nature her-
self; it is the secret of the generation of angels and
worlds ; it is that of God^s own omnipotence. '' Ye
shall be as the Elohim, knowing good and evil." So
testified the serpent of Genesis, and so did the Tree
of Knowledge become the Tree of Death. For six
thousand years the martyrs of science have toiled and
perished at the foot of this Tree, so that it may become
once more the Tree of Life.
That Absolute which is sought by the foolish and
found only by the wise is the truth, the reality and the
reason of universal equilibrium. Such equilibrium is the
harmony which proceeds from the analogy of opposites.
Humanity has sought so far to balance itself as if on one
leg — now on one and now again on the other. Civilisa-
tions have sprung up and have fallen, through the
anarchic alienation of despotism, or alternatively through
the despotic anarchy of revolt. Here superstitious
enthusiasms and there the pitiful schemes of materialistic
instinct have misguided the nations; but at last it is
God Himself Who impels the world towards believing
reason and reasonable beliefs. Wc have had enough and
to spare of the prophets apart from philosophy and the
philosophers destitute of religion. Blind believers and
sceptics are on a par with one another, and both are
equally remote from eternal salvation.
In the chaos of universal doubt, and amidst the con-
flict of science and faith, the great men and the seers
figure as sickly artists, seeking the ideal beauty at the
500
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
risk of their reason and their life. Look at them now
even — these sublime children. They are whimsical and
nervous, like women ; a shadow maims them ; reason
injures ; they are unjust even to each other ; and though
assuredly on the quest of crowns, in their fantastic excesses
they are the first to be guilty of that which Pythagoras
forbids in one of his admirable symbols ; they are the
first to revile crowns and to trample them under their
feet. They are fanatics of glory ; but the good God
has bound them by the chains of opinion, so that they
may not be openly dangerous.
Genius is judged by the tribunal of mediocrity, and
this judgment is without appeal, because, being the light
of the world, genius is accounted as a thing that is null
and dead whenever it ceases to enlighten. The ecstasy
of the poet is controlled by the indiiterence of the prosaic
multitude, and every enthusiast who is rejected by general
good sense is a fool and not a genius. Do not count the
great artists as bondsmen of the ignorant crowd, for it
is the crowd which imparts to their talent the balance of
reason.
Light is the equilibrium between shadow and bright-
ness. Motion is the equilibrium between inertia and
activity. Authority is the equilibrium between liberty
and power. Wisdom is equilibrium in thought ; virtue
is equilibrium in the affections ; beauty is equilibrium in
form. Outlines that are lovely are true outlines, and
the magnificence of Nature is an algebra of graces and
splendours. Whatsoever is true is beautiful ; all that is
beautiful should be true. Heaven and hell are the
equilibrium of moral life; good and evil are the equilibrium
of liberty.
The Great Work is the attainment of that middle
point in which equilibrating force abides. Furthermore,
the reactions of equilibrated force do everywhere conserve
universal life by the perpetual motion of birth and death.
It is for this reason that the philosophers have compared
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The History of Magic
their gold to the sun. For the same reason that same
gold cures all diseases of the soul and communicates
immortality. Those who have found this middle point
are true and wonderworking adepts of science and reason.
They are masters of the wealth of worlds, confidants and
friends of the princes of heaven itself, and Nature obeys
them because they will what is willed by the law which
is the motive power of Nature. It is this which the
Saviour of the world spoke of as the Kingdom of Heaven;
this also is the Sanctum Regnum of the Holy Kabalah.
It is the Crown and Ring of Solomon ; it is the Sceptre
of Joseph which the stars obeyed in heaven and the
harvests on earth.
We have discovered this secret of omnipotence ; it is
not for sale in the market ; but if God had commanded
us to set a price thereon, we question whether the whole
fortune of the buyers would seem its equivalent. Not
for ourselves but for them, we should demand in addition
their undivided soul and their entire life.
502
APOCALYPTIC KEY
Facing p. 502
CHAPTER Vll
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
It remains for us to summarise and conclude. To
summarise the history of a science is to summarise the
science itself, and we are therefore to recapitulate the
great principles of initiation, as preserved and transmitted
through all the ages. Magical science is the absolute
science of equilibrium. It is essentially religious; it
presided at the formation of dogmas in the antique
world and has been thus the nursing mother of all
civilisations. O chaste and mysterious mother who, in
giving milk of poetry and inspiration to the dawning
generations, didst cover thy face and breast. Before all
things she directs us to believe in God and to adore
without seeking to define Him, since a God in definition
is to some extent a finite God. And after Deity she
points to eternal mathematics and equilibrated forces as
to the sovereign principles of things. It is said in the
Bible that God has ordered all things according to weight,
number and measure. Omnia in 'pondere et numero et
mensura disfosuit Deus. Weight is equilibrium, number
is quantity, measure is proportion — these three, and these
are the eternal or divine basis of the science of Nature.
Here now is the formula of equilibrium : Harmony
results from the analogy of contraries. Number is the
scale of analogies, the proportion of which is measure.
The entire occult philosophy of the Zohar might be
termed the science of equilibrium.^ The key of numbers
^ To suggest that the Zohar exists to propound and interpret a thesis
of equilibrium is like saying that the vast text is written about the legend
of the Edomite Kings or that it is a violent attack on Christianity,
because there is a reference to each of these subjects. The symbolism
of the Balance is practically confined to a single tract imbedded in the
Zohar.
The History of Magtc
is found in the Sepher Tetzirah ; their generation is
analogous to the affiliation of ideas and the production
of forms. On this account the illuminated hierophants
of the Kabalah combined the hieroglyphic signs of num-
bers, ideas and forms in their sacred alphabet. The
combinations of this alphabet give equations of ideas,
and comprise by way of indication all possible combina-
tions in natural forms. According to Genesis, God made
man in His image, but as man is the living synthesis of
creation, it follows that creation itself is made in the
likeness of God. There are three things in the universe
— the Spirit, the plastic mediator and matter. The
ancients assigned to spirit, as its immediate instrument,
that igneous fluid to which they gave the generic name
of Sulphur ; to the plastic mediator, they assigned the
name of Mercury, because of the symbolism represented
by the Caduceus ; to matter, they gave the name of Salt,
because of the fixed salt which remains after combustion,
resisting the further action of fire. Sulphur was com-
pared with the Father on account of the generative action
of fire ; Mercury with the Mother, because of its power
of attraction and reproduction ; and Salt, in fine, was the
Child, or that substance which is subjected to education
by Nature. For them also the creative substance was
one, and the name which they gave it was Light. Posi-
tive or igneous light was volatile Sulphur; light in the
negative state, or made visible by the vibrations of fire,
was the fluidic or ethereal Mercury ; and light neutralised,
or shadow, the coagulated or fixed composite under the
form of earth, was termed Salt.
After such manner did Hermes Trismegistus formu-
late his symbol, which is called the Emerald Tablet :
*'That which is above is like that which is below, and
that which is below is like that which is above, for the
operations of the wonders of the one thing." ^ This
^ " God stretched forth His right hand and created the world above,
and He stretched forth His left hand and created the world below. . . .
504
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
means that the universal movement is produced by the
analogies of fixed and volatile, the volatile tending to be
fixed and the fixed to become volatile, thus producing
a continual exchange between the modes of the one
substance and, from the fact of the exchange, the com-
binations of universal form in everlasting renewal.
The fire is Osiris, or the sun ; the light is Isis, or the
moon ; they are the father and mother of that grand
Telesma which is the universal substance — not that they
are its creators but rather its generating powers, the
combined effort of which produces the fixed or earth,
whence Hermes says that this force has reached its
plenary manifestation when earth has been formed there-
from. Osiris is not therefore God, even for the great
hierophants of the Egyptian sanctuary ; he is the igneous
or luminous shadow of the intellectual principle of life,
and hence in the supreme moment of initiation a flying
voice whispered in the ear of the adept that dubious
revelation : " Osiris is a black god.'' Woe to the
recipient whose understanding had not been raised by
faith above the purely physical symbols of Egyptian
revelation. Such words would become for him a for-
mula of atheism, and his mind would be struck with
blindness. But for the believer, more exalted in intelli-
gence, those same words sounded like a|i earnest of the
most sublime hopes. It was as if the initiator said to
him : " My child, you mistake a lamp ror the sun, but
that lamp is only a star of night. Still, the true sun
exists ; leave therefore the night and seek the day."
That which the ancients understood by the four
elements in no wise signified simple bodies, but rather
the four elementary manifestations of the one substance.
These modes were represented by the sphinx, its wings
corresponding to air, the woman's breasts to water, the
God created the world below on the model of the world above, for the
image is found beneath of all that abides on high." — Zohar, Part II.,
fol. 2oa.
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The History of Magic
body of the bull to earth, and the lion's claws to fire.
The one substance, thrice threefold in essential mode and
tetradic in the form of manifestation — such is the secret
of the three pyramids, triangular in respect of their eleva-
tion, square at the base and guarded by the sphinx. In
raising these monuments Egypt attempted to erect the
Herculean pillars of universal science. Sands have ac-
cumulated, centuries have passed, but the pyramids in
their eternal greatness still propound to the nations that
enigma of which the solution is lost. As to the sphinx,
it seems to have sunk in the dust of ages. The great
empires of Daniel have reigned by turn upon the earth
and have gone down into the tomb, overwhelmed by their
own weight. Conquests on the field of battle, monuments
of labour, results of human passions — all are engulphed
with the symbolic body of the sphinx ; now only the
human head rises over the desert sands as if looking for
the universal empire of thought.
Divine or die — such was the terrible dilemma pro-
posed by the sphinx to the Candidates for Theban royalty.
The reason is that the secrets of science are actually those
of life ; the alternatives are to reign or to serve, to be
or not to be. The natural forces will break us if we do
not put them to use for the conquest of the world. There
is no mean between the height of kinghood and the abyss
of the victim state, unless we are content to be counted
among those who are nothing because they ask not why
or what they are.
The composite form of the sphinx also represents
by hieroglyphical analogy the four properties of the
universal agent, that is to say, the Astral Light — dis-
solving, coagulating, heating and cpoling. These four
properties, directed by the will of man, can modify all
phases of Nature, producing life or death, health or
disease, love or hatred, wealth even or poverty, in accord-
ance with the given impulsion. They can place all the
reflections of the light at the service of imagination ;
506
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
they are the paradoxical solution of the wildest questions
which can be set for Transcendental Magic. Specimens
of these paradoxical questions shall here follow, together
with the answers thereto: (i) Is it possible to escape
death? (2) Is there such a thing as the Philosophical
Stone, and what must be done to find it ? (3) Is it
possible to be served by spirits ? (4) What is meant by
the Key, Ring and Seal of Solomon? (5) Is it possible
to predict the future by reliable calculations? (6) Can
good or evil be worked at will by means of magical
power ? (7) What must be done to become a true
magician? (8) What are the precise forces put in
operation by Black Magic?
We term these questions paradoxical because they
are outside all that is understood as science, while at the
same time they seem negatived by faith. If propounded
by an uninitiated person, they are merely foolhardy, while
their complete solution, if given by an adept, would seem
like a sacrilege. God and Nature alike have closed the
Sanctuary of Transcendent Science and this in such a
manner that, beyond a certain limit, he who knows would
speak to no purpose, because he would not be under-
stood. The revelation of the Great Magical Secret is
therefore happily impossible. The replies which we are
about to give will be the last possible expression of the
word in Magic, and they will be put in all clearness,
but we do not guarantee to make them comprehensible
to our readers.
In respect of the first and second, it is possible to
escape death after two manners — in time and in eternity.
We escape it in time by the cure of diseases and by
avoiding the infirmities of old age ; we escape it in re-
spect of eternity by perpetuating in memory personal
identity amidst the transformations of existence. Let it
be certified (i) that the life resulting from motion can
only be maintained by the succession and the perfecting
of forms ; (2) that the science of perpetual motion is
507
The History of Magic
the science of life ; (3) that the purpose of this science is
the correct apprehension of equilibrated influences; (4)
that all renewal operates by destruction, each generation
therefore involving a death and each death a generation.
Let us now further certify, with the ancient sages, that
the universal principle of life is a substantial movement or
a substance which is eternally and essentially moved and
mover, invisible and impalpable, in a volatile state and
manifesting materially when it becomes fixed by the
phenomena of polarisation. This substance is indefect-
ible, incorruptible and consequently immortal ; but its
manifestations in the world of form are subject to eternal
mutation by the perpetuity of movement. Thus all
dies because all lives, and if it were possible to make
any form eternal, then motion would be arrested and the
only real death would be thus created. To imprison a
soul for ever in a mummified human body, such would
be the terrible solution of that magical paradox con-
cerning pretended immortality in the same body and
on the same earth. All is regenerated by the universal
dissolvant of the first substance. The force of this dis-
solvant is concentrated in the quintessence — that is to
say, at the equilibrating centre of a dual polarity. The
four elements of the ancients are the four forces of the
universal magnet, represented by the figure of a cross,
which cross revolves indefinitely about its own centre and
so propounds the enigma respecting the quadrature of
the circle. The Creative Word speaks from the middle
of the cross and cries : ^' It is finished.'' It is in the
exact proportion of the four elementary forms that we
must seek the Universal Medicine of bodies, even as the
Medicine of the Soul is offered by religion in Him Who
gives Himself eternally on the cross for the salvation
of the world. The magnetic state and polarisation of
the heavenly bodies results from their equilibrated gravi-
tation about suns, which are the common reservoirs of
their electro-magnetism. The vibration of the quint-
508
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
essence about common reservoirs manifests by light, and
the polarisation of light is revealed by colours. White
is the colour of the quintessence ; this colour condenses
towards its negative pole as blue and becomes fixed as
black ; while it condenses towards its positive pole as
yellow and becomes fixed as red. Thus centrifugal life
proceeds always from black to red, passing by white,
and centripetal life returns from red to black, following
the same path. The four intermediates or mixed hues
produce with the three primary colours what are called
the seven colours of the prism and the solar spectrum.
These seven colours form seven atmospheres or seven
luminous zones round each sun, and the planet which
is dominant in each zone is magnetised in a manner
analogous to the colour of its atmosphere* In the depths
of the earth, metals are formed like planets in the sky,
by the particular influences of a latent light which de-
composes when traversing certain regions. To take
possession of a subject in which the metallic light is
latent, before it becomes specialised, and drive it to the
extreme positive pole, that is to say, to the live red, by
the help of a fire derived from the light itself — ^such is the
secret in full of the Great Work. It will be understood
that this positive light at its extreme degree of condensa-
tion is life itself in a fixed state, serving as a universal
dissolvant and as a medicine for all Kingdoms of Nature.
But to extract from marcassite, stibium and philosophical
arsenic the living and bisexual metallic sperm, we must
have a prime dissolvant which is a mineral saline men-
struum, and there must be, moreover, the concurrence
of magnetism and electricity. The rest proceeds of itself
in a single vessel, being the athanor, and by the graduated
fire of one lamp. The adepts say that it is a work of
women and children.
The heat, light, electricity and magnetism of modern
chemists and physicists were for the ancients elementary
phenomenal manifestations of one substance, called Aour^
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The History of Magic
Od and Ob — that is to say, nw, niK, 3i«. Od is the active,
Ob the passive, and ^oiir is the name of the bisexual and
equilibrated composite which is signified when the Her-
metic philosophers speak of gold. Vulgar gold is metal-
ised Aour and philosophical gold is the same Jour in
the state of a soluble gem. Theoretically, according to
the transcendental science of antiquity, the Philosophical
Stone which heals all diseases and accomplishes the trans-
mutation of metals exists therefore incontestably. Does
it, however, or can it, exist in fact ? If we answer this
in the affirmative, no one will believe, and the simple
statement shall stand as a paradoxical solution of the
paradoxes expressed by the two first questions, without
dealing with the problem as to what must be done in
order to find the Philosophical Stone. M. de la Palisse
would reply in our place that in order to find one must
of necessity seek, unless indeed discovery is a matter of
chance. Enough has been said to direct and facilitate
research.
The third and fourth questions concern the ministry
of spirits and the Key, Seal and Ring of Solomon. When
the Saviour of the world, at His temptation in the desert,
overcame the three lusts which keep the soul in bondage
— that is to say, the lust of the appetites, lust of ambi-
tion and lust of greed — it is written that the angels came
down to serve Him. The explanation is that spirits are
subject to the sovereign spirit, and he is the sovereign
spirit who binds the rebellious turbulence and unlawful
propensities of the flesh. It should be noted at the same
time that to reverse the natural order of communication
subsisting between things which are, is opposed to the
law of Providence. We do not find that the Saviour of
the world and his Apostles evoked the souls of the dead.
The immortality of the soul, being one of the most
consoling dogmas of religion, is reserved for the aspira-
tions of faith and will never be proved by facts accessible
to the criticism of science. Loss of reason, or its dis-
510
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
traction at the very least, is hence and will be always the
penalty of those who dare to pry into the other life with
the eyes of this world only. Hence also magical tradi-
tions always represent the spirits of the dead as responding
to evocations with sad and angry countenances. They
complain of being troubled in their repose and they
proffer only reproaches and menaces. The Keys of
Solomon are religious and rational forces expressed by
signs, and their use is not so much in the evocation of
spirits as to shield us from aberration in experiences
relative to the occult sciences. The Seal is the synthesis
of the Keys and the Ring indicates its use. The Ring
of Solomon is at once round and square, and it represents
the mystery of the quadrature of the circle. It is com-
posed of seven squares so arranged that they form a
circle. Their bezels are round and square, one being
of gold and the other of silver. The Ring should be a
filagree of the seven metals. In the silver setting a white
stone is placed and in the gold one there is a red stone.
The white stone bears the sign of the Macrocosm, while
the Microcosm is on the red stone. When the Ring
is worn upon the finger, one of the stones should be
turned inward and the other outward, accordingly as it is
desired to command spirits of light or darkness. The
plenary powers of this Ring can be accounted for in a
few words. The will is omnipotent when armed with
the living forces of Nature. Thought is idle and dead
until it manifests by word or sign ; it can therefore
neither spur nor direct will. The sign, being the indis-
pensable form of thought, is the necessary instrument of
will. The more perfect the sign the more powerfully
is the thought formulated, and the will is consequently
directed with more force. Blind faith moves mountains,
and what therefore would be possible to faith if enlight-
ened by complete and indubitable science ? If the soul
could concentrate its plenary understanding and energy
in the utterance of a single word, would not that word
T'he History of Magic
be all-powerful? The Ring of Solomon, with its double
seal, typifies all science and faith of the Magi expressed
by one sign. It symbolises the powers of heaven and
earth and the sacred laws which rule them, whether in
the celestial Macrocosm or in the Microcosm of man. It
is the talisman of talismans and the pantacle which is
above pantacles. As a sign of life it is omnipotent, but
it is without efficacy as a dead sign : intelligence and
faith, the intelligence of Nature and faith in its eternally
Active Cause — of such is the life of signs.
The profound study of natural mysteries may alienate
the casual observer from God because mental fatigue
paralyses the aspirations of the heart. It is in this sense
that the occult sciences may be dangerous and even fatal
for certain personalities. Mathematical exactitude, the
absolute rigour of natural laws, their harmony and simpli-
city, suggest to many an inevitable, eternal, inexorable
mechanism, and for such as these Providence recedes
behind the iron wheels of a clock in perpetual motion.
They fail to reflect on the indubitable fact of freedom
and autocracy in thinking beings. A man disposes at
his will of creatures organised like himself; he can snare
birds in the air, fish in the water and wild beasts in the
forest ; he can cut down or burn entire forests ; he can
mine and blast rocks, or even mountains ; he can modify
all forms about him; and yet, notwithstanding the supreme
analogies of Nature, he refuses to believe that other
intelligent beings might at their will disintegrate and
consume worlds, extinguish suns by a breath or reduce
them to starry dust — beings so great that they are too
much for our faculty of sight, even as we, in our turn,
are probably inappreciable to the eye of the mite or worm.
And if such beings exist without the universe being
destroyed a thousand times over, must we not admit that
they are under obedience to a supreme will, a wise and
omnipotent force, which forbids them to annihilate worlds,
even as it forbids us to destroy the swallow's nest and the
512
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
chrysalis of the butterfly ? For the Magus who is con-
scious of this power in the deep places of his nature and
who discerns in universal law the instruments of eternal
justice, the Seal of Solomon, his Keys and his Ring are
tokens of supreme royalty.
The next questions concern the prediction of things
to come by means of reliable calculations and the working
of good or evil by magical influence. The answers are
in this wise. Two chess players of equal skill being
seated at a table and having opened the game, which of
them will win.f^ Assuredly the more watchful of the
two. If I knew the preoccupations of both, I could
foresee certainly the result of their match. To foresee
is to win at chess, and it is the same in the game of life.
In life nothing comes by chance ; chance is the unfore-
seen, but that which the ignorant fail to perceive in
advance has been accounted for already by the sage.
All events, like all forms, result either from a conflict
or from a balancing of forces, which forces can be repre-
sented by numbers. The future may thus be deter-
mined in advance by calculation. Every extreme action
is counterpoised by an equivalent reaction. So laughter
presages tears, and for this reason our Saviour said :
*' Blessed are those who mourn." He said also, and again
for the same reason : " He that exalteth himself shall be
abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.*'
To-day Nebuchadnezzar is a god, to-roorrow he will be
changed into a beast. To-day Alexander makes his
triumphal entry into Babylon and has incense oflFered to
him on all the altars ; but to-morrow he will die in a
state of degraded drunkenness. The future is in the
past, and the past is also in the future. When genius
foresees, it remembers. Effects are linked together so
inevitably and so exactly to their causes, and become on
their own part the causes for further efi^ects in such
conformity with the first as regards their manner of pro-
duction, that a single fact may reveal to a seer an entire
513 2 K
The History of Magic
succession of mysteries. The coming of Christ makes
that of Anti-Christ a certainty ; but the advent of Anti-
Christ will precede the triumph of the Holy Spirit.
The money-seeking epoch in which we now live is the
precursor of more lavish charities and of greater good
works than the world has yet known.
But it must be understood that the will of man
modifies blind causes and that a single impetus started
by him may change the equilibrium of an entire world.
If such is man's power in the world under his dominion,
what must be that of the intelligences which rule the suns ?
The least of the Egregores^ with a breath, and by dilating
suddenly the latent caloric of our earth, might shatter
and reduce it into a cloud of dust. Man also can dis-
sipate by a breath all the happiness of one of his kind.
Human beings are magnetised like worlds ; like suns,
they irradiate their particular light ; some are more
absorbent, some give forth more freely. No one is
isolated in this world ; each is a fatality or a providence.
Augustus and Cinna encounter ; both are proud and
implacable ; and hereof is fatality. That fatality makes
Cinna seek to slay Augustus, who is impelled as fatally
to punish him ; but he elects to forgive. Here fatality
is changed into providence, and the epoch of Augustus,
inaugurated by this sublime beneficence, was worthy to
witness the birth of Him Who said: '* Forgive your
enemies.'* By extending his mercy to Cinna, Augustus
atoned for all the revenge of Octavius. So long as man
is subject to the dictates of fatality, he is profane — that
is to say, a man who must be excluded from the sanctuary
of knowledge, because in his hands knowledge would
become a terrible instrument of destruction. On the
contrary, the man who is free, who governs by under-
standing the blind instincts of life, is essentially a pre-
server and repairer, for Nature is the domain of his
power and the temple of his immortality. When the
uninitiated seeks to do good the result is evil. On the
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
other hand, the true initiate can never will to do evil ; if
he strikes it is to chastise and to cure. The breath of
the uninitiated is deadly, that of the initiate is life-giving.
He who is profane suffers that others may suffer also,
but the initiate endures in order that others may be
spared. He who is profane steeps his arrows in his own
blood and poisons them ; he who is initiated cures the
most cruel wounds by a single drop of his blood.
The last questions are what must be done to become
a true magician and in what precisely do the powers of
Black .Magic consist } Now, he who disposes of the
secret forces of Nature and yet does not risk being
crushed by them — he is a true magician. He is known
by his works and by his end, which is always a great
sacrifice. Zoroaster created the primitive doctrines and
civilisations of the East, after which he vanished in a
tempest like QEdipus. Orpheus gave poetry to Greece
and with that poetry the beauty of all high things ; he
then perished in an orgie in which he refused to join.
All his virtues notwithstanding, Julian was only an
initiate of Black Magic ; his death was that of a victim
and not of a martyr ; it was an annihilation and a defeat :
he failed to understand his epoch. Though acquainted
with the Doctrine of Transcendental Magic, he misapplied
the Ritual. ApoUonius of Tyana and Synesius were
simply wonderful philosophers; they cultivated the true
science but did nothing for posterity. At their period
the Magi of the Gospel reigned in the three parts of the
known world, and the oracles were silenced by the cries
of the babe of Bethlehem. The King of Kings, the
Magus of all Magi, had come into the world and the
ritual-worships, the laws, the empires, all were changed.
There is a void in the world of marvels between Jesus
Christ and Napoleon. That incarnate word of battle,
that armed Messiah who was the bearer of the last name,
came blindly and unconsciously to complete the Christian
message. This revelation had so far taught us how to
The History of Magic
die, but the Napoleonic civilisation has shewn us how to
conquer. The two messages — -sacrifice and victory, how
to suffer, to die, to strive and to overcome — contrary as
they, are in appearance — comprise in their union the
great secret of honour. Cross of the Saviour and cross
of valour, you are incomplete when apart from one
another, for he only knows how to conquer who has
learned self-devotion, even to death, and how can this he
attained except by belief in eternal life ? Though he died
in appearance. Napoleon is destined to return in the
person of one who will realise his spirit. Solomon and
Charlemagne will return also in the person of a single
monarch ; and then St. John the Evangelist, who accord-
ing to tradition shall be reborn at the end of time, will
appear as sovereign pontiff, the apostle of understanding
and of love. The combination of these two rulers,
announced by all the prophets, will bring about the
wonder of the world's regeneration. The science of the
true magician will be then at its zenith, for so far our
workers of miracles have been for the most part sorcerers
and bondsmen — that is to say, the blind instruments of
chance. Now, the masters whom fatality casts upon the
world are soon overthrown thereby, and those who con-
quer in the name of their passions shall fall the prey of
those passions. When Prometheus in his jealousy of
Jupiter stole the thunderbolts of the god, he sought to
create an immortal eagle, but what he made and im-
mortalised was a vulture. We hear in another fable of
that impious king Ixion, who would have ravished the
queen of heaven, but that which he received in his arms
was a faithless cloud, and he was bound by fiery serpents
to the inexorable wheel of destiny. These profound
allegories are a warning to false adepts, profaners of
Magic Science and partisans of Black Magic. The power
of Black Magic is a contagion of vertigo and an epidemic
of unreason. The fatality of passion is like a fiery serpent
which twists and writhes about the \^orld devouring the
516
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
souls therein. But intelligence — peaceable, smiling and
full of love — represented by the Mother of God, sets her
foot upon its head. Fatality consumes itself and is that
old serpent of Kronos eternally devouring its tail. Rather
there are two hostile serpents striving one with another,
until such time as harmony intervenes to enchant them
and make them interlace peaceably around the caduceus
of Hermes.
Conclusion
The most intemperate and absurd of all faiths is to
believe that there is no universal and absolute intelligent
principle. It is a faith, since it involves the negation of
the indefinite and indefinable ; it is intemperate, for it is
isolating and desolating ; it is absurd, because it supposes
complete nothing in place of most complete perfection.
In Nature all is preserved by equilibrium and renewed by
activity. Equilibrium in order and activity signifies pro-
gress. The science of equilibnum and movement is the
absolute science of Nature. Man by its aid can produce
and direct natural phenomena as he rises ever towards
intelligence that is higher and more perfect than his own.
Moral equilibrium is the concurrence of science and faith,
distinct in their forces but joined in their action to endow
the spirit and heart of man with that rule which is reason.
The science which denies faith is not less unreasonable
than the faith which denies science.
The object of faith cannot be defined and still less
denied by science ; science, on the contrary, is itself called
to substantiate the rational basis of the hypotheses of
faith. An isolated belief does not constitute faith, be-
cause it lacks authority and hence moral guarantee ; it
tends to fanaticism and superstition. Faith is the con-
fidence which is imparted by religion — that is to say, by
the communion of belief. True religion is constituted
by universal suffrage. It is therefore ever and essentially
The History of Magic
catholic — that is to say, universal. It is an ideal dictator-
ship proclaimed generally in the revolutionary domain of
the unknown. When the law of equilibrium is under-
stood more adequately it will put an end to all the wars
and revolutions of the old world. There has been con-
flict between powers as between moral forces. The
papacy is blamed because it clings to temporal power,
but what is forgotten is the protestant tendency towards
usurpation of spiritual power. So long as the royalties
put forward a pretension to be popes, so long will the
popes be driven, by the same law of equilibrium, to the
pretension of being kings. The whole world continues
to dream of unity in political power, but it does not
understand the power resident in equilibrated dualism.
Confronted by the royal usurpers of spiritual power, if
the Pope were king no longer, he would be no longer
anything. In the temporal order he is subject, like
others, to the prejudgments of his time ; he dare not
therefore abdicate his temporal power, if such abdication
would be a scandal for a considerable part of the world.
When the sovereign opinion of the universe shall have
proclaimed publicly that a temporal prince cannot be
Pope ; when the Czar of all the Russias and the King of
Great Britain shall have renounced their derisive priest-
hood ; the Pope will know that which remains to be done
on his own part. Till then he must struggle, and if
needs be must die, to maintain the integrity of St. Peter's
patrimony.
The science of moral equilibrium will put an end to
religious disputes and philosophical blaspheniies. Men
of understanding will be also men of religion when it
comes to be recognised that religion does not impeach
the freedom of conscience, and when those who are truly
religious shall respect that science which recognises on
its own part the existence and necessity of an universal
religion. Such science will flood the philosophy of
history with new light, and will furnish a synthetic plan
518
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
of all the natural sciences. The law of equilibrated
forces and of organic compensations will reveal a new
chemistry and a new physics. So from discovery to
discovery we shall work back to Hermetic philosophy,
and shall be astonished at those prodigies of simplicity and
brilliance which have been for so long and long forgotten.
Philosophy in that day will be exact like mathematics,
for true ideas — being those which are identical with the
living order and so constituting the science of reality —
shall combine with reason and justice to furnish exact pro-
portions and equations as rigorous as numbers. Error
thenceforth will be possible to ignorance alone, and true
knowledge will be free from self-deception. Aestheti-
cism will be subordinated no longer to caprices of taste
which change as fashions change. If the beautiful is
the splendour of the true, we shall be able to calculate
without error the radiation of a light of which the source
shall be certainly known and determined with exact pre-
cision. Poetry will abound no longer with foolish and
subversive tendencies, nor will poets be those dangerous
enchanters whom Plato crowned with flowers and banished
from his republic ; they will be rather magicians of reason
and gracious mathematicians of harmony. Does this
mean that the earth will become an Eldorado } No,
for so long as humanity exists, there will be children,
meaning those who are weak, small, ignorant and poor.
But society will be governed by its true masters, and
there will be no irremediable evil in human life. It will
be understood that the divine miracles are those of eternal
order, and the phantoms of imagination will be wor-
shipped no longer on the faith of unexplained wonders.
The abnormal character of certain phenomena is only a
proof of our ignorance in the presence of the laws of
Nature. When God designs to communicate the know-
ledge of Himself He enlightens our reason and does
not seek to confound or surprise it. In that day we
shall know the utmost limit of the power of man who
The History of Magic
is created in the image of God ; we shall realise that he
also is a creator in his own sphere and that his goodness,
directed by Eternal Reason, is a lower providence for
beings which are placed by Nature under his influence
and domination. Religion will then and for evermore
have nothing to fear from progress, and will follow in
the course thereof The Blessed Vincent de Lerins, a
doctor justly venerated in the golden chain of Catholicism,
expresses admirably this accord between progress and
conservative authority. According to him, true faith is
worthy of our confidence only on account of that invari-
able authority which safeguards its dogmas from the
caprices of human ignorance. *' This notwithstanding,"
adds Vincent de Lerins, *'such immobility is not death;
on the contrary, it preserves a germ of life for the
future. That which we believe to-day without under-
standing will be understood by the future, which will
rejoice in the knowled^^e thereof. Posteritas intellectum
gratuletur^ quod an:z vetustas non intellectum venerahatur.
If therefore we are asked whether all progress is ex-
cluded from the religion of Christ Jesus, the answer is
no, assuredly, for great is the progress expected. Who
indeed would be so jealous of humanity and at such
enmity with God as to wish to hinder progress? But
the condition is that it should be progress in reality,
and not change of belief. Progress is the growth and
development of each thing according to its class and its
nature. Disorder is confusion and the medley of things
and their nature. There must be undoubtedly a differ-
ence in the degrees of intelligence, science and wisdom,
as much for men in general as for each man in particular,
according to the natural succession of epochs in the
Church, but so only that all be conserved and that
dogma shall ever cherish the same spirit and maintain
the same definition. Religion should develop souls suc-
cessively, as life develops bodies which remain the same
through all the stages of their growth. How great is
520
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
the difFerence between the infantile flower of early years
and the maturity of age. The old notwithstanding are
the same in respect or personality as they were in boy-
hood ; it is the exterior and the appearances which have
changed. The limbs of an infant in the cradle are ex-
ceedingly frail, yet are they the same organs, having the
same root principles, as those of the man ; and this must
be so, for otherwise there is deformity or death.
**The analogy obtains in the religion of Jesus Christ,
for progress therein is fulfilled according to the same
conditions and following similar laws. It grows with the
years, with the years it increases in strength, but nothing
is added to the sum total of its being. It was born
complete and perfect in respect of proportions, and it
grows and extends without changing. Our fathers sowed
the wheat, and our nephews ought not to reap tares.
The intermediate crops change nothing in the nature of
the grain ; we leave it perforce as we take it. Catholi-
cism planted roses, and is it for us to substitute brambles }
No, unquestionably ; otherwise, woe to us. The balm
and cinnamon of this spiritual paradise must not change
in our hands to aconite and poison. All whatsoever
which in the Church, that lovely land of God, has been
sown by the fathers must be cultivated and nourished by
the sons. This only must grow, and this alone blossom ;
but it may increase, and it should develop. As a fact,
God permits that the dogmas of his heavenly philosophy
shall be studied, developed, polished in a certain sense ;
but that which is forbidden is to change them, and that
which is a crime is to prune them or to mutilate. May
new light come down on them and the wise distinctions
multiply, but let them ever preserve their fulness, their
integrity and their native quality."
Let us therefore take it for granted that all con-
quests of science in the past have been achieved for the
profit of the universal Church, and, with Vincent de
Lerins, let us allocate thereto the undivided heritage of
521
T^he History of Magic
all progress to come. Unto her be the great aspirations
of Zoroaster and all discoveries of Hermes ; hers be the
Key of the Holy Arch and the Ring of Solomon, for she
represents the holy and immutable hierarchy. She is
stronger by reason of her struggles and is grounded by
her apparent falls in still greater stability. She suffers
in order that she may reign ; she is cast down that she
may be exalted in her rising ; and she dies that she may
rise again. ** We must be prepared," says Comte Joseph
de Maistre, *' for a great event in the divine order ; we
are moving towards it at an accelerated pace, which must
be manifest to all observers, while striking oracles an-
nounce that the hour is at hand. Many prophecies in
the apocalypse have reference to these modern times.
One writer has gone so far as to say that the event is
already inaugurated and that the French nation is de-
stined to become the great instrument of the most mighty
of all revolutions. There is perhaps no truly religious
man in all Europe — I speak of the educated classes — who
is not in expectation of something extraordinary at this
present moment. Does a general presentiment of the
kind count for nothing ? Go back through past ages,
even to the birth of our Saviour. At that period a high
and mysterious voice, beginning in the eastern realms,
proclaimed that the East was about to triumph, that a
conqueror would come out of Judea, that a divine infant
was given us, that he would descend from highest heaven
and restore the golden age upon the earth. Such ideas
were spread abroad everywhere, and as they lent them-
selves to poetry above all things, they were taken over
by the greatest of Latin poets and emblazoned with
brilliant hues in his Pollio, To-day, as in the time of
Virgil, the universe is in expectation, and how on our
part shall we despise such strong persuasion, or by what
right condemn those who are devoted to sacred re-
searches on the indications of divine signs P If you seek
proof of what is in store, look at the sciences themselves ;
522
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
consider the progress of chemistry, of astronomy also,
and you will see where they are leading. Would you
think, for example, that Newton takes us back to Pytha-
goras and that it will be proved presently that the
heavenly bodies are set in motion, like human bodies,
by intelligences joined thereto ? We know not how,
but this is what is on the point of being verified beyond
all dispute. Such doctrine may seem paradoxical and
even ridiculous, because current opinion imposes this
view ; but let us wait till the natural affinity of religion
and science marry both in the mind of a single man of
genius. His advent cannot be far off, and then the
opinions which now seem bizarre or irrational will
become axioms which no one will question, while people
will talk of our present stupidity as they now speak of
mediaeval superstition."^
According to St. Thomas, and it is a beautiful utter-
ance : " All that God wills is just, but that which is just
should not be so designated only because God wills it " —
ISIon ex hoc dicitur justum quod Deus illud vult. The moral
doctrine of the future is contained herein, and from its
fruitful principle one deduction follows immediately :
not only is it good from the standpoint of faith to do
what is ordained by God, but even from the standpoint
of reason it is excellent and rational to obey Him. Man
can therefore say : I do good not only because God wills
it but because I also will. The will of humanity may be
thus at once free and in conformity, for reason—demon-
strating in an irrecusable fashion the wisdom of the
prescriptions of faith — will act on its proper impulse by
following the divine law, of which reason thus becomes,
as it were, the human sanction. From that time forward
superstition and impiety will be no longer possible, while
from these considerations it follows that in religion and
in practical — that is to say, in moral — philosophy, there
will be an absolute authority, and moral dogmas will
' Joseph de Maistre : Soirees de St, Pdtersbourg^ 1821, p. 308.
523
The History of Magic
alone be revealed and established. Till then we shall
have the pain and consternation of seeing daily the most
simple and universal questions of right and duty chal-
lenged, while if blasphemies are reduced to silence, it is
one thing to impose such silence but another to persuade
and convert.
So long as Transcendent Magic was profaned by the
wickedness of men, the Church of necessity proscribed
it. False Gnostics have discredited that name of Gnos-
ticism which was once so pure ; sorcerers have outraged
the children of the Magi ; but religion, that friend of
tradition and guardian of the treasures of antiquity, can
no longer reject a doctrine anterior to the Bible and in
perfect accord with traditional respect for the past, as
well as with our most vital hopes for progress in the
future. The common people are initiated by toil and by
faith into the right of property and knowledge. There
will be always such a people, as there will be children
always; but when the aristocracy, endowed with wisdom,
shall become a mother to the people, the path of per-
sonal, successive, gradual emancipation will be open to
all, and he that is called will thereby be enabled through
his own efforts to attain the rank of the elect. This is
that mystery of the future which antique initiation con-
cealed in its dark recesses. The miracles of Nature made
subject to the will of man are reserved for the elect to
come. The crook of the priesthood shall become the
rod of miracles ; it was so in the time of Moses and of
Hermes ; it will be so again. The sceptre of the Magus
will be that of the world's king or emperor ; and that
person will by right be first among men who shall have
shewn himself greatest of all in knowledge and in virtue.
Magic, at that time, will be no longer an occult science
except for the ignorant ; it will be one that is incontest-
able for all. Then shall universal revelation resolder
one to another all links of its golden chain ; the human
epic will close and even the efforts of Titans will have
524
Magic in the Nineteenth Century
served only to restore the altar of the true God. All
forms which have clothed the divine thought successively
will be reborn immortal and perfect. All those features
sketched by the successive art of nations will be united
to form the perfect image of God. Having been purified
and brought out of chaos, dogma will give birth naturally
to an infallible ethic, and the social order will be consti-
tuted on this basis. Systems which are now in warfare
are dreams of the twilight ; let them pass. The sun
shines and the earth follows its course ; distracted is he
who doubts that the day is coming. Distracted also are
those who say that Catholicism is only a dead trunk and
that we must put the axe thereto. They do not see
that beneath its dry bark the living tree is renewed un-
ceasingly. Truth has no past and no future ; it is
eternal ; it is not that which ends ; it is our dream only.
Hammer and hatchet, which destroy in the sight of man,
are in God's hand as the knife of a pruner, and the dead
branches — being superstitions and heresies in religion,
science and politics — can alone be lopped from the tree
of everlasting convictions and beliefs.
It has been the purpose of this History of Magic to
demonstrate, that, at the beginning, the symbols of re-
ligion were those also of science, which was then in con-
cealment. May religion and science, reunited in the
future, give help and shew love to one another, like two
sisters, for theirs has been one cradleV
5>ere enDsf tlje J^i^tori? rf ^agic
5^5
APPENDIX
AUTHOR'S PREFACE PREFIXED TO THE
FIRST EDITION!
The works of Eliphas Ldvi on the science of the ancient magi
are intended to form a complete course, divided into three parts.
The first part contains the Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental
Magic ; the second is The History of Magic ; and the third will
be published later under the title of The Key to the Great
Mysteries. Taken separately, each of these parts gives a com-
plete instruction and seems to contain the whole science ; but
in order to a full understanding of one it is indispensable to
study the two others carefully.
The triadic division of our undertaking has been imposed by
the science itself, because our discovery of its great mysteries rests
entirely upon the significance which the old hierophants attached
to numbers. Three was for them the generating number, and in
the exposition of every doctrine they had regard to (a) the theory
on which it was based, (b) its realisation and {c) its application to
all possible uses. Whether philosophical or religious, thus were
dogmas formed ; and thus the dogmatic synthesis of that Chris-
tianity which was heir of the magi imposes on our faith the
recognition of Three Persons in one God and three mysteries
in universal religion.
We have followed in the arrangement of the two works
already published, and shall follow in the third work, the plan
indicated by the Kabalah — that is to say, by the purest tradition
of occultism. Our Doctrine and Ritual are each divided into
twenty-two chapters distinguished by the twenty-two letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. We have set at the head of each chapter the
letter thereto belonging and the Latin words which, according to
' For the sake of completeness, I have included this preface, though
from some points of view it might have been reasonably omitted
altogether.
526
Appendix
the best writers, represent its hieroglyphical meaning. For
example, at the head of the first chapter will be found : —
I K A
The Recipient
Disciplina
Ensoph
Kether
The explanation is that the letter Aleph — equivalent to A
in Latin, and having the number i as its numerical value —
signifies the Recipient, the man who is called to initiation, the
qualified personality, corresponding to the Bachelor of the Tarot.
It signifies also disciplina^ or dogmatic syllepsis ; Ensoph^ or being
in its general and primary conception ; and finally, Kethery
or the Crown, which, in Kabalistic theology, is the first and
obscure idea of Divinity. The chapter in question is the develop-
ment of the title and the title contains hieroglyphically the whole
chapter.
The History of Magic, which follows, narrates and explains,
according to the general theory of the science furnished in the
Doctrine and Ritual, the realisation of that science through the
ages. As the introduction explains, it is constituted in harmony
with the number seven — the septenary being the number of the
creative week and of Divine Realisation.
The Key to the Great Mysteries will be established on
the number four — which is that of the enigmatic forms of
the sphinx and of elementary manifestations. It is also the
number of the square and of force. In the book referred
to, certitude will be established on irremovable bases. The
enigma of the sphinx will have its complete solution and our
readers will be provided with that Key of things kept secret from
the foundation of the world which the learned Postel only dared
to depict enigmatically in one of his most obscure books, giving
no satisfactory explanation.
The History of Magic explains the affirmations found in the
Doctrine and Ritual ; the Key of the Great Mysteries will com-
plete and explain the History of Magic. In this manner, for
the attentive reader at least, we trust that nothing will be found
wanting in our revelation of the secrets of Jewish Kabalism and
of Supreme Magic — whether that of Zoroaster or of Hermes.
The writer of these books gives lessons willingly to serious
and interested persons in search of these ; but once and for all he
desires to forewarn his readers that he tells no fortunes, does not
527
The History of Magic
teach divination, makes no predictions, composes no philtres and
lends himself to no sorcery and no evocation. He is a man
of science, not a man of deception. He condemns energetically
whatsoever is condemned by religion, and hence he must not be
confounded with persons who can be approached without hesita-
tion on a question of applying their knowledge to a dangerous
or illicit use. For the rest he welcomes honest criticism, but he
fails to understand certain hostilities. Serious study and con-
scientious labour are superior to all attacks ; and the first blessings
which they procure, for those who can appreciate them, are
profound peace and universal benevolence.
fiLIPHAS l6vI.
September u/, 1859.
528
INDEX
ABRL, 21, 117
Abiram, 386
Abraham, 3, 48, 64, loi, 108, I46,
180, 219
Abraham the Jew, 331, 351, 353
Absolute, 2, 459, 500
Acharat, 410, 412, 414
Achilles, 133, 150
Adam, 11, 40, 41,42, 46, in, 188, 243,
244, 259, 301,459
Adam, Book of the Penitence of, 41-43
Adam Kadmon, 51
Adhi-Nari, 64
Adolphus of Schleswig, 253
Adonai, 103, 229, 248, 249
Aeschylus, 86
Agamemnon, 150
Agde, Council of, 241
Agesilaus, 121
Agla, 103, 104, 248
Agrippa, H. Cornelius, 90, 335
Ahih, 103, 301
Ahriman, 9, 16, 25
Al^ 300
Albertus Magnus, 89, 258, 261
Albigenses, 128, 424
Alchemy, 85, 143, I95-I97> 259, 262,
263, 279, 327, 331-33I' 355' 357.
411, 509, 510
Alcides, 86
Alcmene, 121
AUph, 33, 34,411
Alexandria, School of, 74, no, 215-
219
Alfarabius, 262
Alphabet. Hebrew, 78, 103, 104, 152,
211
Alphonso XI, 316
Alihotas, 410, 412
Amasis, King, 92
Ammonius, 165, 215
Amphion, 82
Analogy, 20, 22, 176, 521
Andre, P'ran9oise, 429, 432
Antichrist, 53
Apis, 80
Apocalypse, 44, 49, loi, 173, 174, 383,
522
Apocrypha, 174
Apollonius, ofTyana 193-198,515
Apuleius, 204-207
Arari/a, 301
Arcanum, Great. See Great Secret
Archedemus, 137
Aristeus, 262, 263, 377
Aristotle, 53, 123, 124, 261, 329
Arius, 213
Ark of the Covenant, 42
Aroux, Eugene, 346, 351
Art, Royal, i, 77, 120
Art, Sacerdotal, 120, 121, 122
Artephius, 262
Asclepios, 115
Astarte, 61
Astrology, 88
Athanor, 196
Augury, 162
Augustine, St., 7, 207
Aupetit, Pierre, 363
Babel, 117, n8
Bacchantes, 126, 148, 161
Bacchus, 148, 152
Baldwin II. 265
Ballanche, 88
Balmes, James, 178
Balneum Maria ^ 196
Baphomet, 269
Bartolocci, 257
Beausoleil, Baron de, 357
Bel, 229
Belphegor, 119
Belshazzar, 157
Belus, 59, 62
Benjamin, Tribe of, 159
Bermechobus, 44
Bernard of Sienna, St., 316
Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, Prince, 415
Berthe an Grand Pied, 233
Berthelot, 74
Beth, 33
Binak, 116
529
2 L
The History of Magic
Blaquerne, Hermit, 329
Boaz^ 21, 42, 179 411
Bodinus, 349, 362, 363
Boguet, Henri, 363
Bohani, 64
Bohme, Jacob, 138, 357
Boismont, Brierre de, 131, 132, 191,
241
Bonaventura, St., 50
Boniface, Bishop of Mayence, 242
Book of Ceremonial Magic, 130, 214,
250, 298, 299
Bossuet, 6, 30
Bouche, Madame, 446
Brahma, 47
Brahmans, 198
Brennus, 228
Bryant, Jacob, 53, 136
Buddha, 66
Cadmus, 82, 83, 148, 149
Caduceus, 149, 517
Cagliostro, Count, 409-415, 417, 473
Cahagnet, 437
Cain, 21, 45, 47, 48, 64, 72, 85. 117,
139
Calchas, 150
Calf, Golden, 80
Calvin, John, 128
Camul, 229
Canaan, 46, 119
Cardan, Jerome, 217
Cartomancy, 151, 445. See Tarot
Cazotte, Jacques, 416-421
Cebes, Table of, 142, 360, 470
Cedron, 42
Certon, Salomon, 162
Chamos, 119
Charistia, 158, 159
Charity. 178, 179
Charlemagne, 245, 246-251, 252, 254,
516
Charles Martel, 242
Charles the Bald, 256
Charles VI, 316
Clmrles VI, of Austria, 441
Charles VII, 271
Charles IX, 349
Charvoz, Abb^, 465
Chastity, 153, 1 54
Chateaubriand, 200, 232
Chilperic, 235, 236
Choknifih^ 7, 116
Christ, I, II, 20, 29, 42, 43, 145,
I57» 171, I73» 264, 266, 405, 454,
508. 51S
Christian, P., 417
Church, Catholic, 13, 20, 35, 115, 145,
171, 287,454.455
Circe, 90
Clairvoyance, 18, 58, 70
Clavel, 441
Clement, St. , 208
Clement V, Pope, 265
Cleopatra, 262
Clothilde, St., 234, 235
Clovis, 235, 236
Cocytus, 141
Cccltim Sephiroiicum, 137
Comte, Auguste, 459, 461
Confucius, 3, 393
Constance of Provence, 256, 257
Cooper-Oakley, Isabel, 401
Corinth, Bride of, 223 et seq.
Cornuphis, 121
Cosmopolite, i.e. Alexander Seton,
357
Cremer, John, 326
Crollius, Oswald, 356, 357
Cross of Eden, 208
Cuvier, 227
Cyprian, Prayer of St., 203
Daath, 116
Dacier, 176
Daleth, 33, 34
Damis, 195, 197
Daniel, 52, 92
Dante, 34, i'42, 345 et. seq., 347, 351
Darboy, Monsignor, 218
Da vies, 136
Dea, Bona, 155
De Cauzons, P., 257
De Cosse Brissac, Due, 423
De Gabalis, Comte, 245
De Genlis. Madame, 402
Dejanira, 133, 134
Delaage, Henri. 477, 478
Delancre, 362, 363
De Lerins, Blessed Vincent, 520, 521
Deleuze, 404, 417
De Luchet, Marquis, 403, 405, 438,
483
Delrio, 362
Deluge, 40, 46, 117
De Maistrc, Comte Joseph, 5, 28, 106,
177, 240, 522
De Marnier, Due, 423
De Medicis, Catharine, 349
De Mirville, Comte, 241, 285, 335, 475,
476
Democritus, 120
De Paul, St. Vincent, 179
Desbi lions, 338, 339
530
Index
Desmousseux, G., 375
D'Espagnet, 357
De Sombreuil, Mdlle., 420, 424
Dcussen, 67
Dc Vatiguerro, Jean, 443
Dc Villanova, Arnaldus, 327
De Villars, Abbe, 109, no, 401
Devil, 12, 13, 14, 15, 187 It seq^ 281
. et seq.
Diana, 161
Dionysius, 217, 218, 219
Dionysius the Younger, 137
Diseases, Astral, 159
Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental
Magic, 13, 29, 116, 172, 230, 393
Dodona, Oaks of, 84
Dominic, St., 262, 292
Donatiots, 128
D'Ourches, Comte, 479, 481, 482, 484
Dositheus, 180
Dreams, 163
Druids, 229-231, 232, 251
Duchesne, 257
Du Fresnoy, Lenglet, 327
Du Perron, Anquetil, 67
Du Potet, Baron, 57, 60, 71, 130, 471,
472, 473, 485
Dupuis, 3, 4
Dzenioutha Sepher, 393
KcKARrsHAUSEN, Karl von. 436
?xstasy, 71, 109, 132
Eden and Earthly Paradise, 41, 45,
115, 244
Edmond, 493, 494
Egeria, 152
Elementar)' Spirits, III, 244
Eleusis, 134, 161, 345
Elizabeth, Mme., 424
Elohim^ Elohim Tzabaoth, 135, 247,
283
Empusie, 90
Enchiridion, 214, 247-250, 478
, Enoch, 344
Enoch, Book of, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46
En soph, 44, 137
Equilibrium, 149, 165, 501, 503, 517,
518,519
Erdan, A., 453, 472, 495, 499
Eros and Anteros, 179
Esquiros, Alphonse, 477, 495, 497
Etteilla, 77, 316, 445
Eucharist, 177, 178, 210
Eudoxus, 53
Euripides, 161
Eurydice, 87
Eve, 17, 117,244, 301, 459
Evil, 13, 14
Erckiel, 92, 265, 381
Fabkr, Rev. G. S., 136
Fabrd-Palaprat, 423
Faith and Science, 10, 27, 178, 517,
518
Figuier, Louis, 74, 327, 409
Fire, Secret, 196
Flamel, Nicholas, 331-334' 347. 35».
353
Fludd, Robert, 357
Fo-Hi, 392
Fontenelle, 156
Fourier, 117, 286, 453
Four Sons of Aymon, 246
Franck, Adolphe, 49
Fredegonde, 235, 236, 237, 238
Frederick William, King, 435
Freemasonry, Freemasons, 4, 9, 21, 29,
54, 266, 382-388
French Revolution, 190
Gaffarel, 280
Ganneau, 458, 495, 497, 499
Garden of Olives, 42
Garden of Pomegranates, 21
Garinet, Jules, 235, 243, 245, 252, 258,
Gaufridi, Louis, 364-366
Geber, 262
Genebrard, 329
Geoffrey de St. Omer, 26$
Geomancy, 151
Gerle, Dom, 428-431, 497
Gilles de Laval, 272-280. 282, 361
Giniel, 34
Gipsies, 306-318
Girard, 373
Glauber, Richard, 357
Gnosis, Gnosticism, Gnostics, 4. 54, 65.
184, 198, 208, 209, 211, 264, 269.
29 ^ 345. 388, 406, 415, 524
Goethe and the Faust, 200, 305, 320.
441,442,453,458
Gdetia, 64, 67, 89, no, 153, 174
Golden Ass, 205, 206
Golden Fleece, 83, 84, 85
Golden Legend, 200, 204
Graces, Three, 159
Grandier, Urbain, 367-372
Gregory, St., 158
Gregory of Tours, 237, 242
Gregory XVI, Pope, 466
Grimoires, Various, 130, 279, 293,
297-305
Gringonneur, Jacques, 79
53'
The History of Magic
de, 286, 480,
Gnldenstnbb^, Baron
483, 484 .
Gymnosophists, 66
Uagar, 48
Ham, 4^, 85, 117, 118, 127
He, 74
Hecate, 161
Helena, 183
HelmoDt, J. B. van« 357
Hennequin, Victor, 474
Henry III, 349, 350
Heraclitus, 120
Hercules, 84, 123, 133
Hermanabis, 80
Hermes, 53, 73, 74, 75, '34, 260
Hiram, 383-387
Hierarchy, Descending, 191
Hierophants, 156
Hod, 21
Homer, 83, 133, 437
Honorins II, 298, 299
Honorias III, 292
Hugh de Payens, 265, 266, 268, 270
Hossites, 128
Hypatia, 215
Hyphasis, 194
Iao, J40
Iliad, 85
niaminati, 4, 54, 148, 284, 435 et seq.
mmortality, 99
rminsal, 228
saac de Loria, 419
saiah, ii
sis, 25, 80, 138, 233, 505
xion, 142
ynx» 77» 78
ACHIN, 21, 42, 179, 411
acob, 7, 8, 159
ason, 84, 85
ean d* Arras, 234
ean de Meung, 346, 347
ean Hachette, 230
echiel. Rabbi, 239, 240, 257, 258
ehovah, 80, 103, 104, 105, 248, 249,
301,304
oachhn. Abbe, 426
oan. Pope, 28
oan of Arc, 230, 234, 271, 272
ohannite Doctrine, 174, 266, 267, 268,
269, 345. 382* 424, 431
ohn, St., 29, 43, 44, 49. loi, 138, 208,
214, 264, 268, 328, 344, 405, 516
enah, 208
oseph, 76
osephine. Empress, 443, 444
Jude, St., 39
Julian the Apostate, 193, 198, 515
Juno, 83
Jupiter, 7, 86, iii, 152, 161 ; Jupiter
and Semele, 19
Justina, Legend of, 200-202
Juvenal, 154
Kabalah, 3, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28,
33, 34, 41, 43, 48, 49, 65, 77, loi-
112, 136, 138, 143, 146, 171, 174,
192, 213, 229, 263, 265, 327, 330,
335, 354, 393, 395, 409, 4^3, 418.
419. See Zohar
Kether, 7
Keturab, 64
Khnoubis, 140
Khunrath, Heinrich, 29, 263, 353-356
Kircher, Athanasius, 77, 156
Klodswinthe, 235
Kolmer, 412
Koran, 241
Kotzebue, 440
Koung-Tseu, 146
Krishna, 66
Krudener, Madame de, 446-448
Labarum, 250
Lacenaire, 467
Lactantius, 141
La Harpe, 417
Lamech, 72
LamicBy 90
Lamennais, Abbe, 496
Land, Promised, 159
Larvfs, III, II2, 128, 141
Lascaris, 408, 409
Larater, 437, 483
Laysis, 93
Leibnitz, 393, 394
LemureSy I41
Lenormand, 444, 445, 446, 493
Leo III, Pope, 214, 248
Leon-Tao-Yuan, 392
Lethe, 99, 141
L'Etoile, 350
Liber Mirabilis, 44
Light, Astral, 13, 16. 18, 19, 57, 59,
61, 71, 73, 98, 104, 109, no, 127,
131, 157, 164, 175, 181, 185, 188,
189, ,190, 195, 213, 279, 332, 342,
410, 468, 506
Lilith, 418
Little Albert^ 160, 261
Loiseaut, 427
Lopukhin, 45
Louis, St., 239, 257
Index
I^uis the Pious, 245, 256
Louis XVI, 423, 424, 425, 433
Louis XVII, 433, 434, 446, 448,461,
462, 467, 497
Louis XVIII, 448
Lucifer, 11, 12, 14, 187, 188, 192
Lucretia, 154
Lully, Raymund, 319-330
Luther, Martin, 28, 347-349
Macrocosm, 511, 512
Magi, I, 55, 59, 62, 67, 147, 160. 180,
186, 228, 515
Magi, the Three, i, 66, 146^147
Magic : as the science of the ancient
Magi, I ; as certitude in philosophy
and religion, 2 ; its profanation, 4 ;
as the science of the devil, 9 ; its
Great Secret, 17 ; opens the Temple
of Nature, '30 ; does not explain the
mysteries of religion, 30 ; its chief
attraction, 31; distinction between
good and evil, 45 ; spurious Magic of
India, 45; term of, 58; its perfect
doctrine in Egypt, 73 ; its summary
in the Emerald Tablet, 74 ; miracles
of Moses not referable to Magic, 79 ;
Magic of Light, 1 80 ; Magic of the
old sanctuaries, 193 ; Magic of works,
262 ; why Magic is proscril:>ed by the
Church, 524; the future of Magic,
524, 525
Magic, Black, 17, 64, 71, 89,90, n8,
126, 129, 130, 138, 190, 209, 223,
255, ;26o, 273, 291, 350, 361, 468,
476. 507. 515
Magnetism, 19, 20
Mahomet, 28, 241
Maia, 157
Maier, Michael, 357
Maimonides, 393
Malkuth, 21
Manes, 54, 144
Manichcans, 16, 198
yiapah. See Ganneau
Marat, 47, 418, 439
Marcel linus, 198
Marcos, 210, 212
Mars, 85
Martin de Gallardon, 432, 462
MartinLsts, 16
Mary the Virgin, 10, 23, 24, 88, 149,
155. 157. 175. 176,255, 517
Matter Jacques, 210, 269
Mcad,G. R. S..56, 57. 58, 77
Medea, 84, 85, 91
Medicine, Universal, 133, 414, 508
Mediums, 164, 427 et seq.^ 475, 479-
483
Melchisedek, 180, 401
Melusine, 233, 234
Memphis, 121, 134
Menander, 186, 415
Mercury, 74, 104, 196, 332, 333, 358,
504 ; Hymn of Mercury, 162 ; Astral
Mercury, 414
Mesmer, Anton, 57, 396-399
Methodius, vSt., 44, 45, 425
Meves, Aug., 433
Microcosm, 263, 511, 512
Minerva, 83, 150
Minos, 161
Mithraic Mysteries, 117
Molay, Jacques de, 271, 422, 424
Moloch, 119
Montanists, 211
Mopses, Order of, 440, 44 1
Morien, 262
Moses, 8, 18, 42, 76, 77, 79, 80, 1 01,
115,135. 145, 283, 331, 524; Wand
of, 8,42, 79. 80, 115
Muller, Philip, 357
Musaeus, 86
Mustapha, Benjamin, 357
Mysteries, Greek, 135
Mysteries, Ancient, 8
Napoleon, 417, 443. 444
Naude, Gabriel, 295, 358, 433, 434
Necromancy, 144
Nehamah, 418
Nero, 184, 185
Netzach^ 7, 21
Nicholas IV, Pope, 328
Nicodcmus, Gospel of, 43
Nicaea, Council of, 213
Nimrod, 59
Ninus, 61, 63
Noah, 40, 46
Norton, Thomas, 357
Nostradamus, Michael, 444
Numa, 55, 60, 92, 152, 155
Oberon, 246
Odyssey, 85
GEdipus, 86, 134, 515
Olivarius, 444
Om^ 69
Omphale, 134
Oracles, 174. i75
Orleans, Council of, 241
Orpheus, 3, 82, 85, 87, 88, 126, 134,
148, I49» 152, 515
Ortelius, 357
533
The History of Magic
Osiris, 25, 80, 208, 505
Ostanes, 262
Oupruhfhat, 67-72
Pan, 174
Pantacle of Mars, 167
Pantacle of Mercury, 167
Pantacle of Saturn, 167
Pantacle of Venus, 166
Pantacle of the Moon, 166
Pantacle of the Sun, 166
Pantacle of Jupiter, 167
Pantarba, 197
Pantheism, fi(^
Pantheus, 146, 152
Paracelsus, in, 231, 263, 340, 341,
342» 344
Paradise, Earthly, 41, 115, 141
Paris the Deacon, 185
Parmenides, 155
Pascal, 50, 51. 439
Pasqually, Martines de, 17, 89, 416
Paths, Thirty-two, 78
Patricius, Franciscus, 54, 56, 57
Paul, St., 1 1
Penelope, 150
Pentagram, 2
Pentheus, 148
Pepin the Short, 242
Pemety, A. J., 85
Peter, St., 182, 183, 185, 214
Peter Lombard, 261
Peter the Venerable, 261
Petronius, 185
Pharamond, 238
Pharaoh and his Magicians, 17, 18, 79,
80
Philalethes, 357
Philip, St., 182
Philip the Fair. 265, 270, 422
Philostratus, 193, 194
Photius, 265
Physiognomy, 97
Picus de Mirandula, 109
Pignorius, L., 77
Pillars, 140
Pison, Lucius, 55
Pistorius, 78
Planis Campe, David, 357
Platina, 293, 296
Plato, 56,86, 121, 122. 124, 135, 136,
138, 142, I43» 167, 214, 215, 519
Pliny, 55
Plotinus, 165, 215
Polonus, Martinus, 294
Polycrates, 92
Porphyry, i6q. 161, 165, 215
Postel, Williaw, 43, 335-340
Pot of Manna, 42
Poterius, 357
Prometheus, 85, 86, iii, 207, 260,
261
Proserpine, 152, 161
Protestantism, 145, 146, 179
ProtoplasteSy no
Psyche, 205
Punishment, Eternal, 7
Puritans, 128
Pyramids, 173
Pyrrhos, 120
Pythagoras, 88, 92-100, 135, 140, 155,
523
Ragon,J. M., 70, 382
Regnum Sanctum, i, 502
Reichstheater of MuUcr, 254
Reincarnation, 99, 100
Reuchlin, John, 3
Richard Coeur de Lion, 270
Richemont, Baron de, 433
Robert the Pious, 256
Robespierre, 47, 430, 431, 432
Roland, 246, 247
Romance of the Rose^ 1 1 5, 351
Romarius, 262
Rose-nobles, 326
Rosenroth, £aron Knorr von, 49, 4^9
Rosicrucians, 4, 29, 100, 1 16, 249, 346,
352, 353. IS^* 3S9» 382, 401, 402,
405, 406
Rossetti, Gabriele, 346
Rousseau, 47, 125, 177, 422
Rulandus, Martinus, 74, 414
Saint-Foix, 229
Saint-Germain, Comte de, 234, 400,
406, 407, 408, 409
Saint-Martin, L. C. de, 16, 17, 416
Saint-M^dard, 374
Saint-Simon, 26
Saint-Victor, Adam de, 44
Salic Laws, 238-241
Salmanas, 262
Salt, 45, 104, 196, 504
Samaria, 182, 204
Sand, Carl, 440
Sardanapalus, 62, 63
Satan, 12, 14, 15, 16, 139, 157, 192
Schroepfer, 436
Schur^, Edouard, 92
Second Birth, 133
Secret, Great, 2, 23, 143, 199, 411;
Great Magical Secret, 507
Secret Societies, 33
534
Index
Secret Tradition in Freeviasonry ^ 265,
437
Scmiramis, 59, 61
Sephiroth, 7, 21, 65, 103, 116, 137, 249
Sergius IV, Pope, 296
Seth, 41, 45, 46, 48, loi
Shelley, P. B., 162
Sibyls, 150, 151
Simon Magus, 180-186, 209, 415
Sisyphus, 142
Sixtus IV, 296
Sobrier, 498
Socrates, 64, 120
Solomon, 145, 384, 385, 386, 401, 516;
Keys of, 105, 393, 507, 510-513;
Ring of, 502, 507, 510, 511, 513;
Seal of, 507, 510, 511, 513 ; Star of,
75, 249 ; Pillars of, 21, 27 ; Temple
of, 145, 146, 167, 179, 265, 383
384. 385* 387
Sphinx, 475, 506
Spirits, Return of, 106, 107, 108
Sprenger, 362
Star, Blazing, i
Steinert, 435
Stone, Comer, 173 ; Stone of the Phi-
losophers, 196, 197 ; Philosophical
Stone, 262, 510
Stryges, 90, X44
Sulphur, 104, 196, 504
Superstition, 158
Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 51, 394-396,
433» 453» 456
Sword of the Cherubim, 117
Sylvester II, Pope, 292, 293, 294, 295,
296
Synesius, 208, 215, 216, 217, 515
Table of Bembo, 77 ; Table of
Emerald, 73, 74 ; Table of Denderah,
4 ; Tables of the Law, 42
T4bor, 420
Talleyrand, 297
Talmud, 20, 172, 239, 240
Tantalus, 142
Taranis, 228
Tarchon, 92
Tarot, 57, 58, 78, 79, 105. 151, 312,
3I3» 314. 315. 316, 317, 416, 445;
Chinese, 39^-393
Tavernier, 342
Telesma, 73, 74, 505
Templar, Knights, 8, 265-271, 291,
328, 406, 422, 423, 424, 425, 467
Temple, Second, 266
Temporal Power, 517, 518
Tenarus, 142
Teresa, St., 9
Tertullian, lo, 204, 21 r
Tetrad, 93, 95
Teutas, 228, 229
Thales, 140
Thebes, 3, 82, 83
Theoclet, 268
Theosophy, 138
Theot, Catherine, 429-432, 446, 497
Thomas Aquinas, St., 6, 259, 261, 523
Thoth, 229; Book of, 43, 121. See
Tarot
Tieck, Ludwig, 361
Tigellinus, 185
Tiresias, 149, 150
Tissot, Hilarion, 189, 283, 360
Toldothjeshu, Sepher, 172, 268
Torneburg, John, 357
Torreblanca, F. ,90, 190, 362
Tournefort, 489, 493
Tree of Knowledge, 41, 115, 116, 323
Tree of Life, 41
Trent, Council of, 336, 340
Trevisan, Bernard, 334
Tribunal, Secret, 250-254
Trigonum, 392
Trimalcyon» 184
Trithcmius, Abbot, 334, 335, 352
Trois-Echelles, 349
Trophonius, 139
Tullus Hostilius, 55
Typhon, 25
Vaillant, 311, 313, 314, 315, 316
Valentine, Basil, 210, 334
Vampires, 112, 144, 147, 489-493
Vau, 34
Vaudois, 1 28, 424
Vedas, 65
Velleda, 232
Venus, 61, 82, 157, 159
Vienna, Council of, 328
Vintras, Eugene, 212, 462-470
Virgil, 86
Vishnu, 64, 65, 66
Voltaire, 3, 106, 116, 155, 373, 374
Westcott, W. Wynn, 78
Williani of Brunswick, 253
William of Loris, 346, 351
William of Malmesbury, 295
Williams, Eleazar, 433
Woman, 22, 25, 232-237
Wonders, Seven, 166-168
Word, Sacred, &c., 3, 20, 76, 89, 124,
I35» ^37. 167, 171, 172, 173, 213,
283, 286, 337, 454, 508
535
The History of Magic
Work, Great, 84, 85, 133, 195, 197,
259, .^55, 355.4^6, 501, 5"9
Wronski, Hoene, 459, 460, 461
Yetztrah, Sepher, 20, 43, 48, 49,
52, 77, 78, 173, 219, 331, 336, 355,
391, 504
Y'Kim, 392-394
Zain, 34
Zedekias, 243
Zerubbabel, 266, 383
Zohar, Sepher Ha, 20, 25, 27, 34, 40,
41,46,48, so, SI, 52,. 82, 98, 99,
109, 117, 137, 141, 146, T47, 173,
197, 207, 211, 249, 259, 336, 358.
Z^h 393, 420, 503
Zoroaster, 3, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60,
65, 66, 75, 76, 84, 180, 515,
522
THE END
Printed wholly in Kiitilttiul for the Muston Company.
By Lowe & Bkydonk, Pkinters. Ltd., Fakk Sikkkt. Camdkn Town^ London, N.W..
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